The Rivers Come Together
by Ambrelle Shirak
Summary: Set after Ice Age 2. The gang explores the lands beyond the glacial walls, and runs into some unexpected characters. Yes, DiegoOC and I apologize, and MannyEllie cause she's so cute!. Please, Read & Review!
1. Chapter 1

Note: I don't own the cast of Ice Age 2, but Kira, Kalek, Rigel and the sabers of the Three Rivers pack do belong to me. And yes, I'm sorry, I'm adding to the growing ranks of Diego/OC.

Title is still uncertain, as is the exact 'where' this little story's gonna go. Read and Review, please!

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Rivers Come Together

Somehow, it had all come out alright. Nobody was really sure just what, or how it had happened, but the ice wall at the southern end of the valley had split. The floodwaters raced out through the fissure, and in the hours of silence that had followed, a beautiful and wondrous sight appeared: an entire herd of mammoths, moving as serenely and majestically as only the largest creatures in the world could do. Manny and Ellie had nearly parted, and even in remaining together, had been tempted to move with the large herd of mammoths. Thankfully, they chose to tread the true path, with their own herd, the strangest herd in the lands.

Not that Diego and Sid had any complaints. Some measure of relief held onto Diego's heart as he still found himself surrounded by prey: two mammoths, a sloth, and the two persnickety possums who claimed to be Ellie's brothers. To the saber, they were his pack… his herd, to use the prey term. But more importantly, they were his friends, friends that he had risked life, and limb for, more than once.

And Sid. Well, Sid was simply Sid. He could be happy no matter what was going on in his life, it seemed. There was always a bright side, always something to look up to. Yes, he was slightly crazy, and had no qualities of personal hygiene, but there was a strange, endearing quality to the numb creature that everyone around him was affected by. Diego would always be the first to admit that Sid was the best fall-guy around.

The fissure in the ice wall had opened up access to greater grazing lands, more hunting grounds as well. Even though the weather was warming, and the ground seemed to cling to paws and feet with a sucking, muddy feeling, the strangest herd of them all was content striking out into the unknown. The valley was too small to hold all the herbivores, in addition to all the new mammoths. So forward they went, through the greening lands. A measure of spring had finally come to the world, with all the uncertainty it held.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Crash? Eddie?" Ellie trumpeted softly, using her trunk to push aside the wide fronds of a willow tree. I Now, where could those two have gone off to/I she wondered silently, as there was no sign of either of her possum brothers beneath the tree. She cocked her great shaggy head to one side, and listened carefully. In the distance, she could hear Sid yammering over his fire-making.

Manny had warned her not to wander off too far. But when her brothers disappeared for any length of time, she tended to get worried. She moved slowly through the woodland undergrowth, being as careful as possible not to step on anything that could hide two wily possums.

"Come on guys," she sighed, as she poked her trunk into another bush. "This isn't funny anymore." Doing her best not to sound cross with the two, Ellie called their names again, continuing further into the landscape. With each step, she knew the sounds of her herd were getting further and further away. And the sounds of the woodland were getting louder and louder.

Feeling a shiver run down her spine, Ellie paused with one foot lifted high. Her ears tried to swivel around, as though they could catch the softest sounds of the surrounding greenery. The leaves on the low bushes around her rustled softly, and Ellie started, prancing to her left, startled by the sense of movement. Her green eyes widened, as she focused on the bushes, and the sonorous growl that began to resonate from within it.

"Oh, please… be Diego?" Ellie whispered softly, before spinning on her hind legs and bolting through the forest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Now you've done it! After it!" Kalek snarled, cuffing his young daughter upside the back of her head. Kira winced, and flattened herself against the ground, as all around her the woods exploded into motion. The pack was on the hunt. Half of them were here, while half waited a distance along the river. "MOVE!"

Kalek's demands were not to be ignored, and Kira struggled to her feet. Already her uncles and cousins were a good distance ahead of her, and she hastily fought to untangle her feet from herself to catch up to them. Kalek wasn't a patient pack leader; he refused to wait even for his own daughter. Crashing through the undergrowth was a feast that would keep the entire pack fed for weeks, not to mention the strength mammoth meat would led to the ailing mothers, and mewling cubs.

Kira stumbled behind him, fighting to find her stride. Her paws were still too large for her frame; she still seemed ungainly and uncoordinated. Entirely not the picture of what any self-respecting saber tooth would look like. Kalek fumed as he snapped at the mammoth's flailing hindquarters, driving the massive female ever closer to the river raging down from the valley. His pack had been most successful using the river to kill their prey, since it had recently become swollen and fast.

The mammoth broke from the trees into the clear space on the river's banks. She picked up incredible speed, swinging her shaggy head from side to side, threatening to sweep away tigers with the breadth of ivory tusks. Kalek called out for the second wave of runners to surge forward, replacing the flagging members of the pack with fresh paws, and fresh lungs. A steady pounding of feet joined Kalek's side, and he cast a sideways glance. It appeared Kira had found her stride, and was racing to catch up to the mammoth.

Kalek knew the potential for the huntress that existed within his daughter, even if she refused to accept the discipline that was needed to attain such heights. One of her brothers would someday take over as pack leader, and once that happened it would only be a matter of time, before Kira would be driven out. Silently, he urged his daughter onward, slowing his own pace slightly as she closed in on the mammoth's hindquarters.

She never got the chance to snap at the orangey hide, as the mammoth skidded around the bend. A landslide had recently created a drop off on the river's bank, a sheer face of mud and rock that was nearly twice as tall as any mammoth alive. It was that drop off that the saber pack had been using to its advantage lately. The hunters were to snap and snarl at the mammoth's right side, driving the panicked creature to its left. However, this prey kept a remarkable head upon her shoulders.

When the young hunters began snapping at her right side, the mammoth leaned right, putting all her weight into driving the sabers aside. Kalek snarled as the sound of breaking bones reached his ears, two hunters laid by the side, trampled beneath the massive mammoth feet. Suddenly, the mammoth trumpeted, in joy, as she rounded the corner ahead of the pack.

Kalek skidded to a halt at the rear of his hunters, yellow eyes narrowing at the sight before him. A bull blocked their way, taller and broader than the lighter colored female, this particular mammoth showed no fear in the face of six saber tooth tigers. Kalek threw his head back, and roared, summoning to him the elder hunters who had already fallen back. Predator locked gazes with prey, and Kalek waited until his pack had begun to fully assemble around him.

Kira kept her head low, allowing herself to slink back into the pack, so that her father wouldn't point her out as the reason the pack failed. Her ears laid back against her skull as the standoff continued. It was Rigel, the eldest and largest of her brothers, who broke the standoff. With a savage yowl, he leapt from his perch in a nearby tree to land upon the bull mammoths back. Claws sunk in deep to the prey's shoulder hump as the mammoth reared back in pain.

The crafty creature waited no longer, plunging forward into the waiting maw of the pack. The sabers scattered, leaping aside from the mammoths huge tusks. A few weren't fast enough, being caught along the curve of ivory, and thrown over to the precipice into the river. Three splashes broke Kalek's heart and resolve.

"Disengage!" the pack leader roared. "Retreat!" One by one the sabers broke off from the fight, tucking tail between their legs and racing back into the woods. They could vanish there, slink away into the dappled shadows, to wait their next chance at some tasty mammoth meat. Rigel was the last to drop away, leaping off the bull's back, and landing precariously in the grasp of a broad tree. He clawed his way fully onto the branch, and snarled at the heavily breathing mammoth, before he leapt from the tree, and disappeared into the forest as well.

Kalek snapped his jaws at his daughters retreating hindquarters, forcing her to turn away from the two mammoths, and follow her family into the forest.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"I'm just happy the Wonder Twins saw you getting chased, Ellie." Manfred's voice was quiet, even as Sid stood atop his back to examine the deep claw wounds. "I wouldn't have found you in time if it weren't for them." His brown eyes shifted slightly to indicate the two possums clinging to Ellie's tusks.

"We thought we'da lost you!" Crash whined.

"Yeah!" Eddie echoed, beating his huge eyes up at his 'sister.' "And where would we be without our little sister to look after us?"

Ellie's trunk brushed across each possum briefly, before she stretched it out, to lay it gently upon Manny's own trunk. The gesture was small, but it held a lot of meaning for the two pachyderms. Manny winced as Sid patted down the last chunk of moss, before he flopped to the ground again.

"There! They didn't look too bad. After all, Diego'sh done worsh by accident!" Sid dusted his hands together as though that were the end of that statement. Manny couldn't see his own shoulders, but they sure felt worse than anything Diego had ever inflicted, in any state.

"Where is Diego anyway? Shouldn't he have come back by now?' Ellie turned her head slightly, to glance into the forest again. Night was rapidly enclosing upon the herd, and she refused to think of what may lurk in the darkness.

"Diego can take care of himself, El." Manny sighed, patting the ground beside him with his trunk. It was his invitation for her newest habit, a habit that he had every much enjoyed. Ellie smiled softly, and paced around to settle in beside the bull. "Don't worry about a thing; he always comes back."

"Yeah," Ellie sighed, as she pulled her feet in around her. "Manny?" She waited until the bull answered with a soft grunt; she then leaned up against him, resting the temple of her head, just below his. "Thank you."

Manny smiled in contentment, and cracked his eyes open just enough to peer around. Sid was busying himself pulling up a few shredded bits of bark to sleep on. The possums were getting comfortable in a small, twisted tree nearby. Diego's customary spot near the edge of the clearing was still empty. As Manny allowed himself to gently stroke Ellie's fur with his trunk, he wondered just what was keeping their resident carnivore so long.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The elders convened barely heartbeats after the dead sabers had been identified. Two of the dead had been Kalek's own siblings; leaving the elders dangerously short of members. This was a fact that the other elders didn't allow to escape their leaders notice, the constant mumbling and bickering of the great cats grated on Kalek's ears.

"Enough!" Kalek had never been the eldest of any circle, and he was still not the eldest even in his own counsel. But he was the strongest; the cubs still whispered stories of how he stopped a stampede all by himself. Kalek never denied any of the rumors. So he sat with this forelegs crossed casually before him. His was the position of power, resting upon the wide rock slab set above the others. "We lost a mammoth today. A hunt that should have been easy... should have been rote. But it went heinously wrong."

The elders rumbled again, raising their voices in agreement to their pack leaders statement. "We lost three good hunters today. My brothers, Aki and Rio, and Bane's sister, Cloud." He indicated the grieving elder with a tip of his head. Cloud had not been among the counsel, but she had been the eldest den mother in the pack. "A mistake was made out on the field. A mistake by a juvenile hunter, who quite possibly should not have been with us today."

The elders fell silent. They all knew just whom he was speaking of. They never expected Kalek to be lenient, not after the way he had wrested control of the pack from their previous leader. But this felt as though it was going too far. Bane scowled as he glanced among the other elders; the whole whopping three of them that were left.

"Rigel is seeking Kira right now," Kalek was continuing with a heavy sigh. "She knows what she has done wrong, and he is to keep her within the den woods until we have managed to think a suitable punishment for her."

"Sir, you can't be serious?" It was one of the elder females, her face scarred and silver. "The girl hasn't been right since we lost her mother. You can't punish the infirm for making a mistake." As she spoke, Tya turned her blind eye to Kalek, as if to illustrate her point.

Bane rumbled. "My last littermate was lost to the river, OneEye! Because the child broke position before our time was right." Tension rolled through the saber's shoulders, and his head lowered slightly in silent answer to her challenge.

"The herds are plentiful enough," Tya countered with a snarl. "The loss of one mammoth should not bring punishment. Reprimand, yes. I am sure the girl feels remorse for her actions."

Kalek snorted then. Shaking his head slowly, he lowered himself until his chin rested upon his forepaws. Now was the time for listening, to give Rigel enough time to find his sister, and do what had to be done.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Diego had learned long ago to hunt downwind of his herbivore family. It was really only polite, to keep them from growing unnerved by his eating habits. Especially since it seemed he could only catch rodents in this forsaken forest. Everything else was getting pretty crafty, from the lapids to the flightless birds. Everything around here was accustomed to being hunted. Something that Diego kept struggling to get used to.

It had taken him a little longer to catch his quarry, but rabbit had never tasted so sweet and fresh as it did when one really had to work for the meal. The tall conifers provided him with the perfect shade to enjoy his catch, while blithely around him the songbirds kept chirruping away.

Idly he scratched at one side, shedding some more of the thick winter coat, in favor of something sleeker, for the balmy weather. He'd never been this far south, never been this... warm. Sometimes it was downright frustrating. Opening his jaws wide, he curled his tongue into a yawn that shook his entire frame.

As he rose, he shook himself, running his tongue over his chops to assure himself that he was clean of all traces of his dinner. Ellie would probably freak worse that the boys would, but it was still something Diego didn't want to risk. Another yawn was accompanied by a long stretch, claws extending and dragging through the pine needle litter.

Diego's ear twitched in response to a rustle high above him in the trees. Furrowing his brow, he looked up, only to watch needles drift lazily down from the branches. He let his eyes contour over the branches for a moment, until he spotted it. A lump of fur nestled in the crook of a tree branch.

As soon as he sat back down to ponder this development, a growl rose from behind him. Over his shoulder, he caught a splash of dark orange fur, and gleaming nine-inch long incisors. It dawned on him, as he turned slowly to face the newcomer: he was trespassing on another saber pack's territory.

"Rogue," the huge saber snarled, lips curling up around the fangs that gave the great cats their name. "What are you doing in our lands? I suggest you hurry up and pass on through, before I make an early dinner out of your carcass."

"Woah, ease up there," Diego shrugged his shoulders, and laid his ears back. Doing his best to look non threatening, Diego curled paws in close beneath him. "I'm just stopping for a light snack. Won't be staying long at all, friend."

"I'm not your friend." The male snorted, flaring his nostrils as he began to circle around Diego, sniffing the latter for scents of trouble. Diego shifted slightly. Would he be able to scent the prey smells that clung to his fur? "You're a long way from home, northerner. Where's your pack?"

"I don't have one." Diego lied. He had a herd, and that was better than any pack he could imagine. Very slowly, Diego turned to keep facing the dominant male. "Anything I can help you with, friend?" Diego liked how irritated the male was getting, how his funnel ears kept shifting back and forth, in a paranoid state of worry.

He seemed to think for a few moments, eyes narrowing, and his stub of a tail dropping slightly. "Yeah." The orange furred male muttered at long length. "If you see a gangly lookin' cub around, tell her she needs to get her butt back to den rocks fast."

Diego nodded, and repeated the message quietly. "So... can I finish my meal in peace?" He asked, indicating the carcass of the rabbit creature not far off. Diego remained still with his paw poised in mid air until the orange saber grunted, and slunk away into the woods. Somewhere, Diego found a sigh of relief hiding in his chest, and he released it, allowing his head to droop and his eyes to close.

He waited, maybe ten, or fifteen slow breaths, until the sounds of the retreating tiger had long vanished into the underbrush. He lifted his head then, glancing into the tree. "You can come out now. The bruiser's gone." Diego had a hard time keeping the smirk out of his voice.

The tree above him moved, or rather, the small tawny lump upon one of the branches stirred. A pair of amber eyes peered over the edge of the branch, and soon after two funnel shaped ears swiveled into view. Diego waited patiently. He'd never been one to climb trees; after all, any prey he would ever go after were land bound. Watching the young female pick her way down the tree trunk to the forest floor was something of an oddity to him.

She moved with exaggerated caution, but she was still most definitely a cub. Her feet were too large for her frame; her legs too long. She landed on the ground with a rather ungraceful thud, splaying all four feet wide to catch her abrupt fall. She remained that way, half crouched while staring at Diego.

"I'm not gonna attack you, kid," he sighed tiredly. She started when he spoke, almost tripping over herself in her haste to sit up straighter. Diego couldn't help but chuckle softly.

"Don't laugh at me," she simmered, narrowing her eyes. She was trying to look cool, and calm. Diego knew better than to fall for that act. "I'm not a kid; I do have a name." She insisted, as Diego raised his brows in curiosity. "I am Kira, daughter of Kalek, who is leader of the Three Rivers pack." One paw lifted as she leaned forward slightly. "Why?"

"Why what?" Diego echoed her odd question, lilting his head to one side. Kira waved her paw in the general direction that the orange male had slunk off in, and Diego added two and two together. "Oh, that! N-No reason." i Because that's what herds do. /i Diego could almost feel the herbivore thought process lodged in the back of his skull. He dared not reveal anything as he watched the young female, Kira, get back to her feet, and turn from him.

"Well, thanks anyway, rogue." Her amber eyes glanced sideways, almost daring him to follow her, but he remained still where he sat. She gave her tail a flicker of irritation. "If you know what's good for you, you'll get out of this area… it's our hunting grounds, and Papa doesn't like strangers."

"I'll take that as a warning, kid, and not a threat." Diego couldn't help but smile. She didn't sound the least bit intimidating. But if this was really the hunting grounds for a saber pack, he had to get the herbivores through the area as fast as possible. He batted a paw idly at the half eaten rabbit, as he watched the female disappear into the forest opposite the way the male had gone. Instinct bid him to follow her, but he turned, and trotted quietly through the woods toward the clearing that promised to be "home" for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

Note: Standard Disclaimers Apply. I had to up the Rating, just to be safe, due to some violence, and knowing myself, I can border on the graphic, occassionally.. Also please check out my forum to read some thoughts concerning points brought up by various reviewers! Thanks!

* * *

The Rivers Come Together

Chapter Two

"What happened?" Diego's yellow-green eyes widened as he fairly snarled the question at the possums.

"Ellie got attacked!" one of them piped up, from behind the other. Diego still had difficulties telling the possum twins apart, especially when they were both cowering in fear.

"Yeah!" the other chimed in, a little more excited. "And it was Manny to the rescue, like some valiant crusader!" For a moment, the possum snatched up a nearby twig and fenced with the air, until Diego gave a low rumble. The brothers scampered away again, leaving Diego to step around the snoring shape of Sid, and the remains of Sid's fire. As he had expected, Manny was still awake.

"So the sabers found you already." Diego had a way of making a statement seem like a question, without ever asking it. Keeping clear of the mammoths tusks, Diego lowered himself to the ground, crossing his front paws before him. "I should have seen the signs sooner."

Manny listened to Diego's sigh, before reaching out to thump the tiger with his trunk. "No harm, no foul." Manny's voice shrugged, even though he couldn't, not with Ellie napping right up against him. "We just got lucky this time."

The saber couldn't help but nod slowly. From what the possums had told him, they had really gotten lucky. He'd never heard of a pack taking cues from the humans on how to hunt large prey, as it seems this particular one did. Shifting slightly, Diego scratched his shoulder with a hind paw. "We'll have to move out in the morning, head into the sun. Getting away from the rivers would probably be a smart move."

Manny arched a brow, his normally stern expression softening a bit with curiosity. An ear flickered on the mammoth as he listened to the sounds surrounding them in the night. Sid snored on through the silence, while the two possums yawned, and fought against the weariness of travel. They wanted to hear what the two friends were talking about.

"What do you know?" Manny finally asked aloud, breaking the thoughtful silence between them.

It was Diego's turn to shrug. "They call themselves the Three Rivers pack. And it's fairly large, from what I hear." With his eyes, Diego indicated the two possums, hinting at what he'd heard from them. "We're better off just staying out of their way, and getting out of their hunting grounds, before they figure out some way to take on two mammoths at once."

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Diego regretted mentioning that. Manny's eyes widened, and his trunk slipped around Ellie's a little tighter. Manny had already lost one family to intrepid hunters, albeit human ones. The fear of losing this fledgling relationship shone brightly in the dark. Diego pushed himself to his feet, and padded over to pat his paw against Manny's unoccupied shoulder.

"Look," he began, somewhat lamely. "We'll be fine as long as we stay together. We just can't let them separate us. No matter how bad we wanna get rid of the sloth." Diego cracked a smile, and waited until Manny relaxed a bit.

"Aww, we can't offer him as a peace offering?" Manny's wry humor showed through a bit, giving Diego reason to breathe a sigh of relief. "Yeah, sounds like a plan, uber-tracker. Get some rest, so we can travel fast in the morning."

Diego had grown used to the nickname. He almost liked it. Grinning around his teeth, the big cat nodded, and slinked over to his corner, furthest from the fire, closest to the forest. He circled his spot twice before settling down, but his gaze still wandered, touching each of his demented packmates in turn. As soon as he was satisfied that they were all safe, Diego laid his head upon his paws, and allowed his eyes to close.

------------ ---------------- ----------------- -------------------- ------------------------ --------------

For Sid, mornings always arrived too early. Still, he never missed the old days when he could sleep in until the sun was high. His new herd was the best herd he could ever wish for. They even woke him up in the mornings when they were ready to leave! Sometimes their methods left a little to be desired though.

For instance, this morning, Manny had lifted the bark slab high up into a tree, resting it between two branches. Once everyone was sure he was still sleeping soundly, Crash and Eddie began to throw acorns and pinecones at the sleeping lump. Sometimes it took an eternity to wake the sloth up, an eternity consisting of many mutterings, many snortings, and lots of suppressed giggles from the ground.

Finally, when Sid snorted himself into awareness, he rolled right out of his makeshift bed, and found there was no ground beneath his feet. "Uh oh," found its way past his buck teeth before he fell. Thankfully, three branches on his way down broke his fall; unfortunately he caught all three branches in the vicinity of his head.

He lay in the dirt for a few seconds, before finding an enormous yawn barreling its way out of him. Pine needles stuck to his fur, as he rolled to his round stomach, and pushed himself up to his feet. Once upright, he scratched his belly and looked blithely upward.

"How'd I get up there?" he wondered aloud. Hands on his hips, he studied the slab of bark, before noticing that the others were chuckling softly. Turning, he narrowed his bugging eyes at the mammoths, but it was Diego who spoke up.

The big cat circled around Sid, his head low. "Sleep walking again?" he purred with a chuckle. "C'mon, bristle-butt, time for us to get a move on." Diego was shaking his head in silent laughter as he padded away from the sloth.

"Brishtle-butt?" Sid repeated, before craning his long neck around to peer at his rear. "Oh! Hey! Look! I'm a porcupine!" He ran forward with a myriad of pine-needles sticking out at all angles from the greenish fur down his back. "No! No! … I'm a sloth-upine!"

Manny rolled his eyes with a groan. "We've created a monster." Ellie could only giggle nervously, as she plucked Crash and Eddie from their tree branch. The possum brothers scrambled around until they were perched up on her back, their tails curled around one another, one took up post watching the rear, while the other pointed forward.

"Full speed ahead!" Crash shouted, pointing behind them. Eddie tapped his shoulder lightly, and corrected the backwards possum. In unison, they pointed over Ellie's shoulder, and repeated the phrase. "Full speed ahead!"

Sid waddled along behind the mammoths as Diego slipped through the trees to lead the odd herd. Manny and Ellie moved out side by side, matching step for step. Occasionally, Ellie would glance behind them, and marvel at how well their footprints matched up. The possums, defying every vestige of possum nature, played a merry game of Eye-Spy while perched on Ellie's broad back.

Diego kept his head warily to the ground, and hoped silently that today's journey would prove uneventful.

------------ ---------------- ----------------- -------------------- ------------------------ --------------

Kira bared her teeth, trying to back further into the root-hollow. She struck out once, with her claws unsheathed, momentarily forcing the larger male back a pace. This wasn't going to end well, Kira was already very sure of that. Rigel had summoned his hunting pack: four of the largest, strongest males born to the clan in the last five years. Her brother blocked her escape from the front, while two of the other hunters lingered above her hiding place. The other pair paced around behind Rigel, snarling and hissing at every move the young female made.

"Rigel, please, just let me leave," Kira's voice cracked as she pressed herself as close to the ground as she could. "Please, big brother, just let me get back to Father."

The orange saber unleashed a snarl which forced his hunting mates to jump slightly. He chuckled softly as Kira flattened her ears against her skull; her eyes growing wide with fear. "Don't ever call me that again," he growled, narrowing his glare full force upon her. "You're nothing more than a worthless waste of prey. You shouldn't even be alive."

"Yeah, none of us wanted to take you in," one of the pacing hunters chimed in, before being silenced with a well timed snarl. Rigel pushed forward another step, causing Kira to cringe further. She was dirty, from hiding in the dirt-filled hollow for the entire night. Rigel barely had the decency to look her in the eye, staring imperiously down his snout. An air which the other hunter more than joyfully adopted.

"You can't even hunt," Rigel continued, as soon as his hunters had settled down once more. "Spent too much time with the humans, didn't you, brat? Born on a leash, you should have stayed on that leash. Just like a _dog._"

"You lie!" Kira cried out, as she suddenly burst into motion. Her claws slashed at Rigel's nose, but the bigger male stepped sideways causing her to miss. She didn't stop however, and used that forward momentum to bolt from her cover back into the forest. All traces of her awkwardness disappeared under the influence of fear, her paws crashing through the undergrowth.

Rigel shook his head to clear it, before he spun around to face the direction of her retreat. "Don't just stand there! Follow her!" The order snapped the hunters into action. "She's dead tonight, or it's our meat that the Elders will dine on!" As one entity, the hunters surged forward, following Rigel's lead.

Kira left a trail that a blind saber could follow, as she crashed through the undergrowth. Rigel followed her as easily by the swath of broken branches and crushed plants, as he did by the sound of her colorful curses and desperate swears. As fast as Kira could be when she untangled her legs, Rigel's hunters were faster. One broke off to the left creating a short cut over strewn boulders, while Kira arced around them. When the saber dropped down from the boulders to land before the frightened female, Rigel chuckled to himself.

"Dyan! Please," Kira began to talk, her eyes darting for a way out, even as the rest of the sabers fanned out to surround her. "We used to play together… you helped my climb my first tree."

At some unseen cue, the sabers flanking Kira closed in fast. Their claws flashed in the dappled light, while all Kira could do was flatten herself to the ground. Both blows scored, one glancing shallowly off her shoulderblade, while the other bit deep into the muscle encasing her left leg. Rigel sniffed admirably as the female didn't cry out. Just as quickly, the two hunters retreated, and Dyan circled around to stand beside Rigel.

Kira turned slowly, wobbling as she was unsure how much weight her leg would accept. Her ears lay flat, even her tail lay listless and motionless. For all the world, she appeared to have given up the ghost. Even her amber eyes were focused low, on the pools of red that the earth soaked up greedily.

Rigel wasn't finished with her. "My mother _died_ to save you. To rescue you. Her last lost cub. Because Kalek claimed he saw you. Don't you remember? You couldn't even speak when my mother carried you back to the lair, with the humans spear still stuck in her side." Rigel spat venom in his words as Kira shrunk backwards, trying to make herself become smaller and smaller. "Loot at me!" Rigel snarled. "I want you to be looking at me when I tear your throat out!"

Kira's eyes shifted abruptly upward, shining with fear in the light of her brother's fury. As the rest of his pack hung back, Rigel lunged for Kira. She moved at the last possibly second, flinging herself haphazardly to the right, away from the shelter of the boulders, but also away from her brother. Some strong self-preservation instinct took hold and forced her to at least try and run. Curling her left leg up against her chest, Kira adopted a strange rabbit-hop gait that would have been comical had it not been effective.

Rigel roared in fury, and twisted to follow her. The distance between the two of them vanished as Rigel's longer gait devoured the ground. He lunged again, sinking one heavy claw into her hindquarters. She kicked out backwards at him, her paw glancing off his chin. Rigel's weight pulled her off balance, buckling her hind legs below her. One moment she was standing, and the next, she felt the harsh ground slam into her side.

She didn't stop there, as Rigel's weight drove her over a steep incline. The landscape had been carved savagely by the passing of the glaciers, leaving merciless near-vertical drop offs like this one. Unfortunately, Rigel was yanked over with her, and nearly felt his shoulder ripped from its socket as she rolled away from the grip of his claws. Behind him, he could dimly hear his hunters calling his name, even as the world spun out of control.

------------ ---------------- ----------------- -------------------- ------------------------ --------------

In less than a second, Diego had spun, knocked Sid to the ground, and wrapped a paw around his mouth. Sid struggled beneath the grip of the predator, suddenly terrified that the saber had regarded him as prey instead of herd-mate. But Diego glared at the muffled sloth, and looked quickly to the two mammoths.

Ellie motioned to Crash and Eddie, who leapt to her back from a nearby pine. The two huddled in her fur behind her head and looked around. Manny leaned down to the saber, even as Ellie edged closer for comfort. Diego directed Manny's gaze to the high slope that had flanked their left side for the last hour or so. The wordless gesture was all Manny really needed. He touched Ellie's shoulder with his trunk, pushing her gently so she would stand behind him.

Sid, finally understanding, shut himself up, which allowed Diego to free him from under his paw. Scrambling awkwardly to his feet, Sid muttered under his breath and brushed himself off. The last few pine needles of his sloth-upine-ness had fallen off with Diego's brusque action. But even Sid had the common sense to hide behind one of Ellie's legs while the situation was sorted out.

"I heard sabers, loud ones," Diego whispered to Manny as the two scanned the ridge. "Up there."

"Should we keep moving?" Manny spared a glance back toward Ellie. She was nervously looking around for whatever had grabbed the boys attentions. "We're all a little jumpy as it is. And I wanna find a safe spot for tonight."

"Yeah," Diego nodded. "We should kee—" The saber trailed off, as something caught his eye just down the ridge. Something tawny had pitched itself over the edge, and was rolling uncontrollably down the incline, while seconds behind it, fighting for control, was an orange shape. Diego swore under his breath, and ran forward.

"Ellie, come on!" Manny urged her, as he lumbered into a gallop right behind the speeding saber. By the time the first shape rolled to a stop, Diego had placed himself between it, and the orange one. Head lowered, eyes narrowed, Diego snarled at the newcomer, the same bruiser that had interrupted his meal the day before.

"Rogue," the orange saber growled, even as he precariously braced himself against a rock and a stunted pine. "Give me the cub." Diego shook his head defiantly.

"Come get her." He challenged, as Manny pulled up short trying not to flatten the inert from lying behind Diego. Confusion glittered in the mammoth's eyes, as he glanced between Diego and the larger saber. Diego never spared a glance backward, knowing that his herd would trust him.

"Herbivores?" the bruiser laughed, slipping slightly from his perch. As the orange saber strove to correct his pride, and regain his balance, the sound of four voices drifted down the incline. Over his shoulder, he glanced once. The hunters wouldn't be able to find their way down the slope in time, plus there were two mammoths, both of which had already caused the deaths of packmates. "Do you eat grass and leaves too, rogue?" sneered the saber as he began to slowly turn.

"Five hunters to gang up on one female? Where's your pride, skunk?" Diego fired back, taking half a step forward.

"This isn't over, rogue. The girl's to die, by my claws, or one of my packs." The bruiser jumped, catching himself by bracing against another tree. The steep slope was slippery, and he had to be careful or he was going to end up like Kira, unconscious and beaten. "She's a bad luck charm, mark my words. You'll regret this."

Diego snorted, but lowered his guard a bit, when it was clear the saber wouldn't be coming down the slope. "The only thing I regret is not tearing up your ugly mug when I first met you." He muttered as he turned back toward his pack. Diego was greeted by three sets of eyes, all curiously waiting an explanation. But the two mammoths were looking down at the feline lying at their feet.

Diego stepped closer, and lowered his head to sniff at her gently. Her flank rose and fell shallowly, while she bore the signs of a terrifying fight and flight all over her. Diego raised his eyes to meet with Manfred's gaze. "We can't just leave her here," Diego began softly.

"Right, you heard those tigersh. She'sh shupposhed to die!" Sid waddled forward, and leaned right down to the female's face. His clawed hands moved to cup the tiger's head, but Diego cut him off with a sharp growl. Sid danced back a few feet. "I wash jusht gonna carry her!"

"Ellie?" Manny was the one to ask, gently nudging her with his trunk. "Are you okay with this?" His dark eyes worried right into hers, as the decision would be ultimately be up to the cow. Ellie glanced down to Diego, and thought back on the stories that Manny and Sid had told her over the months. If one saber can have a good heart, why can't another?

She nodded slowly. "Of course…" but there was hesitation in her voice. "We can't let her die." She smiled at Manny then, her green eyes glittering; and Manny was able to relax a bit. When she smiled like that, the whole world was right and proper. He felt his own face crinkling up, echoing her expression.

"I'll carry her," Manny offered after a moment. "Let's find a cave or something, so we can set up for the night."

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

Author's Note:

I'm sorry for the crazy amount of time between updates. When New England flooded a few months back, my fiance and I were hit very hard by the flood waters. It's taken some time to get life back to some strange semblance of normality, or what passes for normality. As things are, my writing time is at a savage premium these days. But I'm hopefully going to be taking measures to make that time more plentiful.

Thanks for your patience everyone, Ambrelle.

* * *

Rigel already knew what his father was going to snarl. He had returned empty-pawed, to the den rocks, doing his best to mask the limp in his front right leg. The tumble down the embankment, and the subsequent climb back up had taken more out of the proud saber than he cared to admit. His pack moved warily about him, dispersing slowly as they made their ways back to their own dens.

A few soft whispers rose in his wake. Cubs marveled at the amount of blood on his paws, while den mothers wisely reined the more enthusiastic youngsters back. Rigel's back and shoulders were still taut and strained from the adrenaline. Who knew what he would do to the cub that startled him?

Rigel's thoughts were turned so deeply inward, that he failed to notice when the last of his hunters had left him. Could he convince Kalek that the injuries the cub sustained were life-threatening? Or should he lie, and tell his own father that Kira was dead, thrown in the river and washed away? No. Neither story would satisfy the clan leader. Rigel had been given a job to do, and he had failed.

As he suspected, word had already reached Kalek of the hunters return. As he drew close to the Elder's gathering area, he noticed that they were all present. Rigel's stomach turned a flip. Kalek was standing on his outcropping, practically vibrating with rage. The Elders seemed impassive, but Rigel read the small cues in the way they sat. Tya was frightened; her blind eye caused Kalek to be invisible to her if she were looking at Rigel. Bane seemed just as angry as Kalek, ready to pounce upon the young hunter within a moment's notice.

"Explain yourself." Kalek demanded. There was no preamble. No greeting of father to son, only the cold, calculating voice of a clan leader. In that moment, Rigel found the courage to tell the truth, as the consequences for being caught lying to counsel would have been far worse.

Rigel's story spilled out in moments. He described how they had cornered her, how she fought. He outlined the injuries they had inflicted upon the cubs gangly body. He explained how she had fallen over the ravine, and nearly taken him with her. Somehow, he managed to leave out the herbivores, and the rogue saber. Perhaps it was best if Kalek wasn't bothered by that detail.

There was silence as Rigel wound down, finding himself breathless with the telling. Kalek slowly licked his chops, angling his head just so that his canines caught the fading light. "You will drag her back here, carcass or not." Kalek snarled softly. "You have two days to find her, and bring her back here."

Tya swiveled her head toward the clan leader. "Kalek, she is to be driven out, not slain. That was the counsel's choice."

Kalek only nodded. But Bane huffed under his breath. "If she attacks the heir again, he is within his rights to slay her."

Rigel allowed himself the smallest smile as he slipped away from the Elder's circle once more. He was still destined to take the clan from his father. Even the elders knew that.

------------ ---------------- ---------------- ------------------- -------------------- -----------------

_"Mum? What's that?" There was a bright light far in the distance, a single prick of sunlight in the darkness of the cave. Except, this wasn't a normal cave, or perhaps it was Kira who was not normal._

_A warm tongue rasped up against her, jostling her softly. She had the urge to stand up, to walk toward that light. But it seemed to flicker, like fire. Fire meant humans. And humans meant pain, loneliness, and loss. She turned her head to the side, seeking her mother's shoulder to bury her face against._

_She was Rally's favorite cub, again. Her mother was whole and warm against her, smoothing her fur gently with a rough tongue. Kira wanted to sleep, to lean here against her mother's presence, and close her eyes. But that grooming tongue jostled her one more time._

_She was a cub again. A true cub, short stubby legs, and a rough spotted belly full of milk. Wobbly steps were always a challenge, following Rally down to the water's edge was the other. Rally was a patient mother, and old mother. She had many cubs before Kira, but Kira would be her last. Her favorite. Her littlest baby._

_Kira had just lowered her head to the lapping edge of the river to mimic the sleek tawny shape of her mother, when the spear landed with a dull thud bare paws-width from her head. Mewling in terror, Kira had run for the trees. Rally faced the human hunters in a stand-off, until one threw a rock that bounced accurately off the tigresses skull._

_A sack of wolf-skin dropped down over Kira's head. Her cub-claws were not hard enough yet to pierce the leather. Her tiny teeth could not slash effectively. She was trapped._

_"No! Mum! Mum!" Kira cried out, calling for Rally. Her cries changed as she sought to press against the steady presence in her dream. There was no furry shoulder to greet her nose in the darkness. There was only emptiness. The gripping terror of abandonment. She didn't want to remember… she didn't want to see it all happen again._

_Kira lurched to her feet, and half-ran, half-limped to the tiny mote of light in the distance._

-------------------- ------------------------- -------------------- ----------------------- ----------------

The light hurt. Kira wanted to cover her face with her paw, but she found that she couldn't move. She was stiff, sore. It felt like something was caked over her left leg, and most of her rump. She couldn't even flap her stumpy little tail. She waited for a few moments, and then slowly opened her eyes again.

The painful light was from a fire that burned merrily a short distance from her face. The warmth was pleasant but entirely cheerless. Fire meant humans. And anywhere with those ghastly two-legged barbarians was the last place that Kira wanted to be. Her ears ached in a sympathetic response to the memories the fire drew from her. She tried to pick her head up and look around, but found that even her neck refused to obey her orders.

She must have let out some sort of sound, because suddenly there was motion all around her.

"She's awake! She's gonna eat us!" Two clarion voices shouted. The sound sent daggers of pain through Kira's skull, and she closed her eyes again. They were speaking. Which instantly ruled out that her captors (saviors?) were human. The ground seemed to vibrate beneath her body.

A groundquake? She thought the last of those had passed before her birth. Surely the Elders had always told the cubs stories of how the ground would shake and split. Finally she labored to open her eyes again, squinting against the brilliance of the fire. Her amber gaze was greeted by the sight of a single, shaggy leg the size of a tree trunk. With her next breath, she recognized the heavy musk of mammoths, in particular, the cow who she had alerted the hunters too; and the bull who had rose to her rescue.

"Good morning, sleepy head," the bull said, as his trunk moved slowly over the wounds on her shoulder and hips. Kira realized then, that the stiffness was partially due to the layers of mud that had been slathered over her wounds.

"What? She'sh awake!" A new voice, slurred and reedy, made Kira really want to crane her neck around. "How come I get left o—?"

"Sid. Shut up." Now that voice Kira recognized. The rogue. She cast her eyes about, until she found him lingering behind the mammoth's great legs. He watched her carefully, as though he expected her to attack them all. "You're hurt pretty bad, kid. Just take it easy."

That was that. As soon as the words were out of the rogue's mouth, Kira knew that she couldn't just **lie** here. She had to get up. She watched him carefully as she summoned her strength. She had vast reserves of it; she was, after all, Rally's daughter. After those few moments, she shifted, levering her good shoulder beneath her as a brace. Her left paw still curled uselessly, but somehow she managed to get her right leg up under her, pushing herself into a half-seated position.

"Kid, don't," the rogue came forward, pushing past the two mammoths. Kira caught the glance shared between the two large prey beasts. "Lay back down before you hurt yourself any more."

Kira narrowed her eyes in stubbornness. Her breath whistled in her nostrils, while she refused to pant from the exertion. Finally through ground teeth, she managed: "I didn't ask for your help." The two sabers locked eyes for a few more moments. Kira gave first, her eyes suddenly dilating to slits. She swayed precariously for a moment, her gaze going glassy and unfocused, before she went down again, hard.

Everyone gathered around her winced in sympathy.

---------------------- --------------------- -------------------- ---------------------- -------------------

"And she's down again," Manny sighed, heavily, before reaching up into a nearby tree with his trunk to strip off some leaves. The leaves he automatically shared with Ellie; their trunks twined together momentarily as she deftly plucked the choicest bunches. Shoving what was left of his snack into his mouth, Manny chewed thoughtfully before figuring out his next words. "So, do we stay here another day? Or carry her, again?"

Ellie had finished her bunch as well, and stripped a branch of her own to share with Manny. He repeated her part of the earlier exchange with a slight smile. But instead of eating her share, she chose to shake it in Diego's direction. "You still haven't explained how you know that big tiger from the hill."

"Oh, yeah," Diego has honestly hoped that they had forgotten. "He ran into me while I was eating. Told me he was looking for a cub," here, Diego waved a paw toward the slumbering form of Kira. "and threatened me with my life if I didn't leave their hunting lands." He sighed then. "They must also think you two are pretty easy pickings. Two lone mammoths…"

Manny grunted, and turned quickly to the saber. "Alright, alright, I get your point. We'll keep moving… just until sleeping beauty here wakes up again… she's giving my trunk a cramp."

Manny slipped the young cub back into the cradle of his trunk. Ellie stepped up beside him, and offered her help, but the stubborn bull refused once again. Once more they were off. Sid continued to ramble relentlessly to anyone within earshot, while Diego did everything he could to get away from the sloth. It was life as usual for the demented herd.


	4. Chapter 4

Author's Note: I want to thank all of you for your continued support through my dry spell. Hopefully this indicates that the dam has broken and my story is going to flow freely again, but I can honestly never tell what direction my muses are going to take me on any given day. I want to thank all of you who have been submitting reviews, and reminding me that I did promise to finish this story! And I will! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

* * *

Rigel and his pack took the long way down through the ravine. It was a slow, hard going, as the sharp rocks were not kind to saber-paws, and Rigel's wrenched shoulder burned more with each forced step. He longed to call the pack to a halt for the evening, to rest his wounds and recoup his energy. But pride and stubbornness wouldn't let him show weakness before his hunters. He would push on, until one of them asked to break.

With Rigel on point, the other sabers could chat quietly among themselves. They were on the hunt, but until they drew near to their prey, their minds wandered elsewhere. At the center of the tread-line, Dash, Ouzo, and Clear debated over which was the prettiest female waiting to be claimed, back at the den rocks.

Content to leave one ear on the prattle behind him, Rigel stepped gingerly over an outcropping of rocks. However, his footing slipped and he nearly fell in shock when he heard Dash utter the words: "Too bad Kira will be the last girl with those pretty amber eyes…"

Growling as he regained his footing, Rigel spun on his pack mates. The three cringed at the savage snarl coming down from above, while Dyan remained in the back, lurking in his own thoughts. "Front and center, Dash. You have point from here out. You'd best not miss her scent, since you're so taken with my damnable sister."

Dash's head dropped down below his shoulders, and he looked up at Rigel submissively. "But.. but its true…" he whimpered as he slunk forward from his compatriots. "Old Rally was the last den mother with the amber eyes… and now little Kira's to be driven ou--- _oooowch_!"

Rigel silenced his pack mate with a flash of claws across the bridge of his nose. The smaller tiger cringed, and took a step backward, his eyes narrowed.

"None of you…" Rigel began with a rumbling growl. "None of you will _ever_ speak of my mother in that tone. Got it?"

Ouzo and Clear nodded, each trying to hide behind the other, while Dyan simply looked up at the pack leader. Waiting until the others had passed him by, Rigel jumped down from his rocks to pace at Dyan's side.

"Why punish Dash for speaking before he thinks?" Dyan asked finally. The rusty maned saber had been born the same year as Rigel, and orphaned shortly after. The two were close as brothers, and before she had been stolen, everyone in the grand pack had believed that it would be Dyan who would court Kira when the time was right. "You know his mouth is just as fleet as his feet."

Rigel shook his head, pausing a moment to stretch his shoulder out. Dyan paused a few steps ahead of him, watching with feigned disinterest. It wasn't often that Rigel showed a weakness. The pack leader snorted, and continued on. He didn't bother to answer his friend's question, but Dyan wasn't the type to let sleeping cats lie.

"Are you angry because he's showing interest in her? Or are you angry because she got away from us the first time?" Dyan pushed the issue, grinning as Rigel began to snarl beneath his breath. "I think I'm getting close. Lets see."

Rolling his eyes skyward, Dyan feigned thoughtfulness, and gestured idly with a paw. "She still hasn't brought in a solo kill, but her own father wants her skin to be brought back to him. Rally was the fiercest huntress of her generation. Do you think Kalek sees more of his old love in the child than he's comfortable with?"

Rigel swung a paw at his brother, but kept his claws sheathed. "Not only do you talk too much, but you think too much as well!" The snarled answer echoed loudly off the ravine's walls, giving the whole hunting pack a reason to pause. Rigel shook his head and lowered his voice, leaning close in to Dyan's side. "Kira is nothing like Mother was. I am ashamed to share parentage with her."

Dyan took the batted paw without blinking. But his cold green eyes remained locked on his friend. "Would things have been different had she not been taken by the humans?"

Rigel opened his mouth to answer, when Dash gave a shout from ahead. Grateful for the distraction, the saber launched into a sprint to catch up with their point guard. On Ouzo and Clear's tails, they pulled up short in a small, rocky clearing.

Dash's nose was to the ground, his tail flapping steadily. "There was fire here. But no human smell. Just mammoth…"

As if on cue, the other sabers in the pack all dropped their noses to the ground as well. They fanned out in a spiral from where Dash crouched, covering each inch of the ground. Soon enough, the sabers were calling out scents.

"Possum!" came one from Ouzo, beside a fallen tree. "Sloth!" called out Clear, after he finished sneezing. "Two mammoths," clarified Dash after a few moments. "The same pair that we hunted earlier." Dyan softly began to growl in a corner. "Kira's scent is here…"

Rigel responded to Dyan's growl in kind. "Do you smell that too?" he asked, his voice suddenly soft. "The rogue was here too." With a jerk of his head, Rigel gathered his pack around him. "Here's the deal. Kira and the rogue are the targets. We bring them back to Kalek. If they fight, we kill them, and drag them back as corpses. If we get a chance at an herbivore, we take it."

Dash shivered, but nodded. The others grinned around their great teeth and rumbled softly in their chests. This would be a hunt for the ages; they could feel it in their bones.

* * *

"Sid, what the hell do you think you're doing?" Diego found himself snarling at the sloth, even though he was trying not to.

Sid jumped, sloshing the water all down his chest, and belly. With a vexed grump, the sloth dropped the bark-bowl and tried to dry his fur. "Well fine, then! I won't bring the girl any water! She'll shtarve, and… and… what'sh it called when you don't drink any water?"

"Dehydrate, Sid." Manny informed him casually. They were setting up for a brief lunch break, and a nap for the possums. The ravine was starting to get shallower, and at some point, the herd knew they would have to leave the cool shade for the sparse forest above. "And he's right. She should drink something when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up again," Diego muttered, glancing at the inert lump of tawny fur beside the low fire. Sid had already retrieved the bowl, and was sauntering off once more to the trickling stream running down the center of the ravine.

"Don't be so pessimistic." Ellie's trunk thumped soundly on Diego's skull as she passed him by. The giant elm trees nearby were perfect for a lunchtime snack. "She opened her eyes while Manny was carrying her, so she's gotta wake up again sometime."

"She…" Diego blinked. "Ugh. Alright. She's going to need to eat sometime too, y'know. You'd better keep your brothers away from her for a while."

Ellie blinked, and with a careless sweep of her head, took out a small berry bush with her tusks. Shaking the branches free, she edged back from uprooted bush. "What do you mean?" Glancing over, Crash and Eddie were playing catch with the husk of a chestnut.

"They're perfect sized appetizers for a kid like her," Diego answered. He wasn't trying to be mean. Just… realistic. Or so he was telling himself. He moved beside Sid as the sloth returned with the bark-bowl full of water.

"There. Now she can drink if she's thirshty." Sid grinned widely at Diego, and reached out to pat the female sabers head. Just as his clawed paw came to rest between her ears, she shifted. The motion of her head made Sid leap into the air with a shout, and scamper backward.

Her eyes were open! Diego circled around her, to put himself between the herbivores and her line of vision. He glanced around, unsure of what to say, or if she was even truly aware of him standing there. So eventually, he lowered himself to the ground, putting him more on her level. As he did so, he nudged the bowl of water closer with his paw.

Her gaze shifted then, from the saber before her, to the fire to her left. It felt good and warm on her injuries, as the makeshift mud-cast baked solid in the heat. The area around her was silent, except for the bickering of two voices not far off. Finally, she picked her head up, stretched her neck forward, and quietly lapped at the offered water.

Diego opened his mouth to speak, but was stopped by a pointed look from Manny. The last time they had tried to force her to do something, she rebelled against them. For now, the girl spent a few moments getting herself comfortable, rolling onto her belly, rather than laying on her side. She winced visibly as she pulled her left hind leg in beneath her, while her left front curled without any visible discomfort.

It seemed like decades passed with the crackle of the fire, and the boisterous bickering of the possums. Her ears finally flicked forward, orienting on Diego sitting with such restrained impatience in front of her.

"Thank you…" she murmured.


	5. Chapter 5

Author's Note: Thanks for all your patience once more. And a huge special thanks to Maudiebeans for her absolutely gorgeous fanart that's she's sent me! You can actually take a look at the two pictures over at my message board, as Rigel and Kira now have faces to match! Thank you so much, Maudie! You made my day!

* * *

"Thank you?" Diego echoed in confusion, about ten heartbeats after she spoke. Here he was expecting some sort of stubborn assertion that she didn't need their help, and she goes and thanks him. Ellie could be heard laughing softly behind him, even though she was pressing her face to Manny's shoulder.

Diego shot a look over his shoulder, which pulled the girl's attention along with it. She fixed her eyes on the two mammoths, and the sloth, blinking a few times as though she didn't believe what she was seeing.

"I must be still asleep." She ducked her head and rubbed her face with her right paw. "There's no way I'm awake."

"Kira, isn't it?" Diego used her name to get her attention back on him. "You're awake all right, kid. This really is my pack. The mammoths are Manny and Ellie, and the sloth is Sid. There's possums around here somewhere, one's Crash, the other's Eddie." Even as Diego finished introducing them, he noticed the female was scowling. "What's wrong?"

"When you give them names, it makes them less like … food."

Diego was the only one who found her funny. While he was still trying to stop laughing, Manny stepped forward and cast his shadow over the two tigers. Kira appeared properly awed by the sheer size of the bull mammoth, as she tried to hunker down inside her fur more fully. Wide-pupil amber eyes met steady dark ones, and she waited.

"Now that you're awake, we can keep moving. Diego says we have to be off your pack's lands fast. Can you tell us how far they hunt?" Straight to the point, Manny didn't even give her time to put together an answer before hitting her with another question. "And why are you being hunted by your own pack?"

Kira's lips pulled back from her teeth in a defensive snarl. Her ears laid back against her skull as she trembled. Diego cleared his head and jumped to his feet, putting himself once more, between predator and prey. He wondered who had taught her to display such fear so openly.

"Easy there, Manny. You're scaring the kid." Diego waved a paw before the mammoth's trunk until the great shaggy beast stepped back. By the time he turned back to Kira, she was struggling to get her feet once more. Sid had trundled around to her side, and had his hands out like he would catch her should she fall.

"He's right." Kira clipped out as she wavered on her feet. "Rigel doesn't give up. I cost the pack a hunt… and it wasn't the first time." Ellie noticed that the tiger looked at everyone, but at her. Lowering her left foreleg to the ground, she tested how much weight it would take. Then she did the same with her rear. Mud cracked and flaked as she stretched the muscle slowly. When she finally felt comfortable, she knew she'd just be slowing them all down. "Thank you. For… for… rescuing me. But I have to go back and face my father."

"Wait just a minute," Manny took a step, which put one of his legs directly in her projected escape path. "Do you know what they're planning on doing to you? We all heard the big one say he was going to kill you!"

Kira's ears flattened again, while she turned slowly. "If I can get back to the Den rocks before Rigel does, I may be able to apologize to my father." She paused as her eyes caught the crackle of the fire. "How… how is there fire, with no humans?"

"That…" Sid paused for dramatic effect as he strolled out from between Manny's front legs. "Would be my doing, dear tiger! They call me… the _Fire King_!" As he spoke, he bent his knees slightly and whisked one hand through the air, trying to be dramatic.

Kira's nose instantly wrinkled, and she gave her head a shake. "Phew! More like the Stink King." Wet fungus was not her idea of a good scent. Sid was too oblivious to scowl, and he snatched up his two rocks from the corner of their little shelter.

"Shee.. I take the two rocksh and I… bash'em together! Like sho!" Sid hunkered down near the wobbly saber and banged his rocks together. One, two, three strikes and they did nothing, until, upon the fourth impact, a shower of bright sparks flew up from the collision point.

Kira yelped in fright, and moved to take a step backward. Her bad hip buckled beneath her, and she swayed precariously for a moment on three legs. Diego shoulder blocked Sid, knocking the sloth off his feet and sending him skidding across the little hollow. He tried to get his opposite shoulder up under the side of the cub before she toppled over hard, but he wasn't fast enough to do more than ease her fall.

As Kira lay panting in pain, on the ravine floor again, Ellie edged forward until she could stretch out her trunk. Gently, she stroked the saber's fur just between her flattened ears. Kira either lacked the strength to bat the trunk away, or found the action strangely comforting.

After a few moments, Diego lowered his head. "You okay, kid?" When she simply grunted in reply, he glanced up at the two mammoths. Ellie nodded first, and turned her gaze upon Manny. For a few moments, it looked like Manfred would balk at the thought, but his huge shoulders shrugged, and he turned away. Diego couldn't help but smile to himself. "Look, if you can't walk, one of the mammoths can carry you. I can't let you go back to your pack this injured. You wouldn't stand a chance."

Kira's amber eyes rolled open for a moment. "Like I would in the first place," she muttered. Ellie's trunk withdrew as Kira struggled to get on her feet again. "Damn you sloth… you singed my whiskers." Her muzzle wrinkled, and she gave her head a slight shake. Sid cowered from her sight as she sought him out. "I'm fine, rogue," she tried hard to disguise the pain from her voice once she was somewhat steady again. "My father won't kill me."

Diego looked around, as if he were silently seeking aid from his companions. In the end, it was Ellie who spoke up, her voice soft, and eyes lowered.

"It's just… well, I don't think its that we're worried about." She curled her trunk in the air, pointing vaguely in the direction they'd come from. "More like the big sabertooth who promised us he'd see you dead."

Kira seemed to blink at that, lost in deep thought for a few moments. "Rigel's my brother." She practically whispered. "I don't know why he's so angry."

Manny cleared his throat, his trunk lifted to pinch the area between his eyes with the two flinger-lip protrusions on the tip. He sighed after a moment. "Look, we should get going. Lunchtime's over, and I'm sure your wonderful brother didn't stop to snack." When Ellie turned wide, astonished eyes toward him, he pointed back into the darker recesses of the ravine with his trunk. "Well, why should he? He's got two mammoths, a sloth, two possums and a pair of tigers on his menu for the end of his hunt!"

Ellie gave a frightened squeak and went to gather up her brothers, trying to break up their game without getting dragged into it. Sid followed her, simply for the sake of getting away from the crazy, busted-up tigress. Which left Manny and Diego to study the wobbly female.

"Think you can walk, kid?" Diego finally asked. "I think you should wait on confronting your father until you've healed up some."

Kira's lips curled back, revealing the full length of her canines, and twisting her features into some facsimile of a hunter's snarl. Diego didn't fall for it, as she lacked any real ferocity behind the action. As her snarl faded, Manny stepped forward slightly.

"He's right, y'know." The softness in his voice caused both sabers to look up at him. "You can't go back like this." He held his trunk out then, as though he expected her to climb into the curl of it, so he could carry her. Kira's amber eyes traveled down the length of his trunk, out toward the curls of his tusks, and back to rest for a moment on the dark eyes that watched her.

Without a word, she took a few hesitant steps, limping heavily with one of her rear legs. Once she'd managed the first few steps, she flapped her stumpy little tail at the two males, and continued to hobble along. She didn't disguise the pain, pained over her features, very well.

Diego winced as she limped away. "She's going to slow us down," he observed softly, to Manfred.

"You willing to leave her behind?" Manny posed the question, even though he knew the answer. A predator the saber may have been, but he possessed a heart of gold, much like everyone else in their herd. Diego simply grunted in reply, and started to move ahead. Manny fell into step beside him; they would let the cub set the pace, no matter how slow that may be.

The pack was momentarily paused by a rocky section of escarpment that led out of the ravine. It was good land for a saber to jump along, but Rigel doubted that a mammoth could scale the top. They were getting closer to the prey; pushing on through the night had closed the considerable distance into a mere matter of hours. If any of Rigel's hunting pack were tired, none of them dared to show the fact.

Rigel paced among them as they waited for their directives. His green eyes were narrowed to slits as he wracked his brain over the best way to do this. They were only a pack of five. Five hunters had never taken down a single mammoth, let alone two. And he had to factor in the threat of the rogue. Part of him prayed that his sister would put her belly to the ground, and offer her throat willingly to him, but he knew that wouldn't be the case. Kira was every bit as willful as their lost mother had been.

Finally, he jerked his head up, eyes flashing in the midday light. "Clear, Ouzo." The two addressed sabers turned to him, waiting attentively for the rest of their orders. "You will each pick a side of the ravine, up top, and you will keep pace with us. When it comes time, the task to exhaust the mammoths comes down to you."

Ouzo swallowed, hard and loud, but nodded. He glanced at Clear once, and the two knocked their foreheads together, in a show of brotherly solidarity. Rigel waited until he was sure he had the rest of the pack's attention.

"Dash, Dyan. You will drive the prey along the ravine until the two mammoths are within range for the other two to strike. I will deal with both the rogue, and my sister." Rigel pretended not to notice the way Dyan's mouth turned down into a scowl. There was no room to challenge a pack leader during times of the hunt, so whatever was on his den-brother's mind would remain unshared. Finally, Rigel snapped his jaws, jolting the four sabers into motion.

Ouzo leapt to the escarpment bank, and scrambled up it, showering the ravine floor with loose pebbles and half-frozen dirt. Clear's ascent up the opposite side was much smoother, as the smaller tiger was perfectly accustomed to climbing. Once the two were vaguely situated, Rigel lowered his head and began to trot forward.

The gentle breeze blowing from the east kept bringing tantalizing scents of dinners to come, plus the faded, woody scent of smoke. Silent as they moved from a trot into a full lope, all the sabers of the hunting party continued to wonder just how there could be fire while there were no humans.

They were close, too close to screw this up. Dyan vanished into the scrub brush to the side, while above Ouzo leapt over fallen logs and strewn boulders while keeping his eyes on the ravine floor. Dash reminded them all where he got his name, and sprinted forward, sunlight dappling over his fur as he too vanished into the brush. Rigel alone remained directly on the trail. In moments, he had come across the tiny clearing beneath the outcropping of rock.

Even a quick glance showed the signs of recent occupation. The small pile of smoking sticks was the best indication that the prey had just recently left the area. Rigel slowed once more, and glanced around as his hunters waited for him on the far side. It didn't take him long to find what he searched for: a set of uneven paw prints in the soft dirt.

Normally, sabers put their rear feet directly in the print created by their forefeet. It helped disguise their numbers when the conditions were snowy and the prey was crafty. But every set of Kira's tracks had an extra impression, where her torn-up rear leg couldn't make the full distance. Rigel grinned, if she was awake, she was slowing them all down.

He kept the pack at a reserved pace, letting them gather their energy. He was confident that their prey would emerge from the forest just ahead of them, any moment.


	6. Chapter 6

Author's Note: Ohmigosh! Two chapters in as many days! I couldn't stop writing this one, once I started it. A few questions answered, but so many more brought up! Enjoy!!

* * *

Sid was happy that he was no longer the slowest member of the herd. Of course, the other tiger was only slow because she had been practically shred to bits, and he was slow simply because he had short, stubby legs. But that wasn't something he really looked at often. Sid was taking advantage of the leisurely stroll to snack on a fresh branch of leaves that he yanked off the bush.

Manny was in the lead once more, carefully finding the most gently inclined path he could. The ravine was getting shallower and shallower, but it wasn't a case of the sides lowering to meet the floor, it was the floor slowly rising up to meet the sides. Manny kept checking behind him, watching his herd pick their way slowly in his path.

While Sid snacked, and Diego paced the distance between the two mammoths, Ellie walked quietly beside the newest traveling companion. What possessed Ellie to pursue a friendship with one of the sabers that had attacked her was completely beyond Manfred's ability to comprehend. He passed it off as another one of those gender-mystiques, and tried to satisfy himself with the knowledge that he'd never understand her.

Crash and Eddie had fallen asleep, one dangling from each of Ellie's tusks by their tails. They swayed gently with the motion of her walking, but only seemed to be lulled by the effect. The two possums had been so tuckered out by the insane games they played while everyone else lunched; they'd fallen right asleep once Ellie convinced them to settle down.

It was strange. Ellie hadn't exchanged so much as a single word with the young tiger limping beside her, and yet, they walked in a most companionable silence. It was the lack of chatter between them that made Ellie notice the eerie quality the land had taken on. Normal forest sounds had died away, and a quick glance skyward, showed no tetratorns gliding effortlessly overhead. Ellie lifted her trunk toward Manny, to call to him, but she never got the chance.

Something large, and bulky landed on her back, and a searing pain lanced down her sides as sharp claws dug into her shoulder hump. Ellie trumpeted in terror, waking the possums, as she lurched forward into a run. Absolute chaos erupted around them. Up ahead, Manny shouted for the shemmoth, and turned to intercept her terrified flight.

Except, he didn't get too far. A golden-toned shape shot down from above, and suddenly, Manny had his own assailant to worry about. He stretched his trunk up and back, trying his best to use it as a bludgeon, anything to get the cat's claws out of his shoulders. Ellie charged past him, and introduced her shoulders to a tree trunk. The tree cracked under the onslaught of mammoth might, and began to slowly topple over.

Meanwhile, Crash and Eddie clung for their dear lives to Ellie's tusks, swung this way and that as she panicked. The two of them prayed aloud, and kept trying to shout over her trumpets. If they could calm her down, things would be fine! Sid dove for the bushes, and frantically began to hunt around for rocks to throw, or a stick to shake at the tigers.

As he rooted around beneath the bushes, his clawed hand fell on something soft and furry. Swallowing loudly, he picked his head up and looked directly into his own face, reflected in the pearly white canines of a lean, smiling, carnivorous machine. The saber lunged, snapping his teeth together, but Sid's terror-driven instincts made him flinch out of the way just in the nick of time. Screaming, Sid scrambled to his feet and waddled out of the bushes as fast as he could; the saber snickered darkly and sauntered out behind him.

Diego only had seconds to assess the situation before choosing what to do. He sprinted for Manny, and at the last second gathered himself up for a leap of complete faith. Powerful rear legs catapulted him through the air, while he unsheathed his claws to the fore. Diego hit the attacker hard in the side with his claws, the momentum carrying both of them down over the side of the mammoth. The other cat barely had time to register what was happening, before Diego landed atop him, shattering the other cats ribcage in the process.

Manfred didn't even thank his carnivorous friend. He didn't have time. Once freed of the claws in his back, Manny rolled himself up to full speed in an effort to catch up to Ellie. He called out repeatedly to her, hoping that his voice would get through her panic.

Diego wasn't taking any chances. As he glared down at the Three Rivers saber, he knew it was a kill-or-be-killed situation. Without dwelling on the subject too much, he slit the other cats jugular, and leapt away, leaving the beast to bleed out. Manny could handle a single tiger, so for the time being the mammoths would be fine.

"Dyan, please, make him understand!"

Diego heard the desperate cry moments before he realized he had forgotten someone. Pivoting on his hind legs, Diego launched into a brief sprint that closed the distance between him, and the cub. Kira was backing down slowly, hopping awkwardly on her rear leg to keep the two males at a distance.

Diego pulled up short as Rigel's massive form swung around. "Deal with her!" the bruiser snarled at his companion. "I've got the rogue." The one Kira addressed as Dyan nodded briefly and advanced a few more steps toward Kira. Rigel maneuvered so his body blocked Diego's view.

"Still in our territory, rogue? You don't care much for your health, do you?" Roaring, the massive saber rose up on his hind legs and slashed with a double-pawed attack at Diego's face. Diego refused to take the strike, and rose up to take the blows against his shoulders, pulling his face back from the conflict. The two locked in combat for a few seconds, before mutually disengaging and circling the other warily.

Beneath the renewed clash of the two tigers, Kira begged for her former friend to have mercy on her. "Dyan, please.. just let me go. Please don't kill me."

Dyan took his eyes off of her for a single moment, to check that Rigel indeed had his hands full. Once he turned back, the snarl had faded from his mouth, and his eyes held a resigned sorrow. "You have to get away from the Three Rivers, Kira. Rigel won't stop hunting you until your dead."

"But why?" Kira begged as she tried to keep her footing on the slope. "Please, tell me why he wants me dead!" The desperation cracked her voice, and a shudder rocked through her as her footing threatened to slide right out from beneath her. One false step and she'd be sliding back into Dyan's waiting claws, without a doubt.

"You are Rally's daughter… you and Rigel are Kalek's only cubs. Half the grand pack would follow you over him, if something were to happen to Kalek and the elders. Just because you're Rally's daughter." Dyan moved suddenly, closing the distance between them. With a sudden swipe, he knocked her to the ground, as easily as though she were a twig.

Her eyes squeezed shut, Kira awaited the blow that would end her life, but it never came. Inching one amber eye open, she saw Dyan posing as though he were choking the life out of her. His muzzle lowered so that his breath ruffled the fur of her neck. Kira almost squeaked, but Dyan applied a little pressure to convince her to lie still.

"Where the hell is Dash with that damned sloth?" he muttered, greenish-eyes searching the brush from his stance. He pushed down on Kira's neck when she tried to pick her head up, forcing her back onto her side again. "Act dead, dammit. Unless you want Rigel to skin me alive too!"

Kira's heart stopped. Dyan was risking himself for what? Her life? She didn't understand it. Much less could she grasp why Dash was in on the scheme. Dyan lifted his head for a moment, and breathed a sigh of relief. Dash emerged from the brush dragging the body of the sloth between his forelegs.

"Damn thing fainted when I said 'boo.'," the long-legged saber griped, spitting out the foul-tasting, fungus-coated sloth. "Oh, hey, Kay-kay." Dash leaned his head down to nuzzle Kira just behind her ear, but received a swatted paw from Dyan for his movement. Glaring at the larger cat, Dash flattened his ears back and growled softly.

"Stop griping, and wedge that thing under Kira… make sure it's covered by the bushes." Dyan indicated the proper bushes with a jerk of his chin. "Kira, stop moving. You have to act dead, or this isn't going to work."

"What are you doing?" she finally got out, her voice a strained whisper as Dash tried to shove Sid's rump beneath hers.

"The sloth stinks like… like… an unclean wound," Dash supplied, shoving the sloth's head beneath the bushes. "Dyan'll tell Rigel that he snapped your neck, and hopefully, Rigel won't want to drag you back."

"Hopefully,' Dyan echoed softly. "If he survives…"

Dash's attention was pulled toward the fight between his hunt leader, and the rogue saber, just as the rogue appeared to get the upper hand on Rigel. In some strange, surge of strength, Diego had gotten a shoulder up underneath Rigel's chest, and bowled him over onto his back. With the bruiser's feet in the air, he kicked and claws futilely at Diego's form, while Diego kept making attempts at the soft underbelly and throat of his opponent.

Dyan gave Kira a meaningful look, and she closed her eyes obediently, flattening her ears against her head so she could keep them from twitching. Giving a bellow, Dash leapt into the fray, trying to knock Diego away. Diego leapt away before the smaller saber could land a blow. Dyan took the opportunity to interpose himself.

"It's done, Rigel. Let's get out of here!" Dyan snapped, snarling at the rogue.

Rigel's head turned toward the bushes where Kira lay. His lips curled back from his teeth in a savage grin of triumph. "Grab her body!" Rigel ordered as he began to turn from the rogue.

"NO!" Diego roared, and lurched into motion. Knocking aside two of the three easily with his shoulders, Diego skidded to a stop before what he thought was the young saber's body. He snarled at the three sabers who turned slowly to face him.

"Rigel, it's not worth it," Dash murmured to his pack leader. "Kalek will believe you; we're witnesses."

Rigel opened his mouth to snarl an answer, but he felt a slight tremor from the ground. The mammoths! Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw both the bull and cow barreling down the ravine, tusks lowered and ready for the fight. There wasn't a sign of Ouzo or Clear with them however. With a savage sound of frustration, Rigel jerked himself away from the thought of Kira's body as a trophy, and he leapt up onto the steep escarpment.

"You haven't won, yet, rogue!" Rigel snarled before ascending back into the forest proper. Dyan and Dash lingered for a moment or two before following him, saying nothing as they vanished over the top.

Diego let himself relax, as Manny and Ellie planted their feet to stop their headlong rush. Manny looked once behind him, to the body of the saber lying on the ravine floor, and once to Diego. The sabers ribs heaved with his labored breath, and his head hung low between his shoulders.

"Di-" Manny began.

He was interrupted by a sudden flurry of words from the saber. "They got her! I was so wrapped up with the big one, the others got her! Damn it all!"

Manny took half a step back from his friends tirade. But it was Ellie's brothers who noticed the slight motion behind him. Crash scampered from behind Ellie's ear, down her tusk. Wrapping his tail around the ivory, he held his hand up over his eyes and leaned out. Eddie jumped up and down on her head, and finally slid down her trunk.

"Ellie! LOOK!" Eddie shouted.

Both mammoths and the male saber complied. Kira had opened her eyes and was pushing herself back to her feet. Her attention wasn't on the noise in front of her, but on a lump of something by her side. She lowered her nose, and nudged the dirty greenish-tinged fur of a sloth.

"Sid?" she asked softly, in a voice hoarse from terror. "I think they're gone now…"

For a moment, Sid's eyes flickered open, then they rolled around in his head. "Five more minutesh mom!" He slurred before flopping back into the dirt.


	7. Chapter 7

* * *

"Diego, you alright?" Manny asked the question while the saber was still staring at Kira. She was alive, that much they were relieved for, but at what price? Even Sid seemed to be unharmed, which made no sense at all to Manny. When Diego nodded, Manny stepped forward and scooped Sid's sleeping form up into his trunk. "Ellie, would you mind carrying the dog?"

Reference to their private joke made Ellie smile. Graciously, she accepted the burden of the sleeping sloth, while Manny turned to the two sabers. Kira's features were downcast as Diego grilled her about how she was still alive.

"Dyan and Dash," she answered simply after a moment. "They... tricked Rigel to save me." After she saw the disbelief in the gazes of the two males facing her, she drew her mouth down into a scowl. "They did. They stuffed Sid down there with me in case Rigel came over to sniff... But... you stopped them Diego. You stopped them from taking me away." She limped a few steps forward, until she was standing between the two males. "Thank you."

Diego had no idea what to say to that. He looked up at Manny wonderingly, until the mammoth just shrugged. "Well, they think you're dead now." The mammoth said bluntly. "Does that make you happy?"

Kira shook her head. "No." She sighed softly, and continued to explain over Diego's groan. "Dyan said something that makes me think Rigel's planning something big. Something against our father."

"Kid, that doesn't concern you anymore. They aren't hunting you, so we should just move on." Diego griped, circling around behind her. "Let Manny carry you, so we can cover more ground."

"Hey, how'd I get volunteered again?"

"Because I'm taking care of the dog, and my brothers," Ellie chimed in, brightly. When Manny groaned, she patted his shoulder with her trunk. She still couldn't believe how brave he had been against the sabers. Manny had somehow managed to yank the carnivore off her back, and bash him against a rock. Plus it looked like Diego had killed one, so the hunting party of five, had been reduced to three. Ellie didn't know carnivore hunting patterns, but Diego did.

"It still does concern me," Kira protested, even as she allowed Manny to curl his trunk around her legs. His thick proboscis formed a steady loop that Kira found it easy to just curl up on. She promised herself that she'd remember to thank him later. "Kalek is my father. And the Three Rivers is still my pack. My mother would have wanted me to try to protect our way of life."

"Even if they want you driven out?" Ellie asked softly. She took up a spot beside Manny, while Diego padded quietly to the bull's other side.

Kira's amber eyes lowered and nearly closed as she hesitated before she nodded. "Rally would want that..." With her eyes downcast, she saw the crimson pool that Manny carefully avoided stepping in, and then, she spotted the lean shape lying broken on the ground. "Ouzo!" she cried out, starting to move upon Manny's trunk. Something stopped her however, and she simply craned her neck to watch the carcass pass them by. "Oh, Ouzo. I'm so sorry..."

"What're you sorry for?" Manny demanded after a few dozen steps had passed. "You didn't kill him. His own choices did, nothing more. Just like the other one." Manny and Ellie glanced around, looking for the shape of the tiger that had been smashed into the rocks out here. Manny found the rock, complete with a fresh splotch of crimson. But a quick glance around showed no sign of a body.

Ellie gave him a panicked look, but he shook his head gently. If they'd only looked a little harder, they would have seen the green eyes watching them from the brush. But Clear could hardly think straight, much less risk an attack on two full grown mammoths, and a saber tooth tiger who was larger than himself. What were of interest to the cat with the broken back were the bright amber eyes of a most definitely not dead cub. Only when the demented herd had vanished over a soft rise in the forest floor, did Clear even begin to try to drag himself home to the Den Rocks.

Manny was happy when just before they found a spot to sleep for the night, they could see the end of the pine forest between the trees. Beyond the last few feet of forest lay open grasslands, with long rolling hills and plenty of hollows to hide in. He decided to shelter them all for the night in a large divot made by an uprooted old tree. The network of roots stood taller than Manny's back, and offered protection from the wind and threatening drizzle of the night, and the floor of it was nothing but plain dirt. So Manny didn't worry about Sid's fire catching to the whole of the wood behind them.

Sid had woken up shortly after they had left the ravine behind for the sparse forest. He had woken fully expecting tigers to be eating him, and he had regaled Ellie with the story of his valiant fight against the lone tiger. Diego constantly rolled his eyes and chuckled, while Kira appeared to steadfastly ignore him. Even after Manny had set her down, she seemed to ignore them all.

More confident now that night was falling, Crash and Eddie took off into the undergrowth to scavenge for some food. Manny drew Ellie off to do some browsing of their own, their trunks intertwined for a few moments as he led her away. Sid cheerfully offered to stay by Kira's side while Diego went out to bring back something for her to eat. While it took a bit of convincing, Kira eventually got her own wish, and was left alone, in the hollow of the uprooted tree, while Sid gathered some wood for his fire, and Diego went to find dinner.

Kira let herself go in the silence, let herself mourn the death of Ouzo. Even if the hunter had been cruel to her since her return, she had never thought he deserved to die. She thought of Dyan, and how majestic he had seemed to her in her first year. From her first steps out of Rally's den, he'd always been there with Rigel, playing hunting games with her, and teaching her to climb trees. Somewhere in her two year absence, something had changed.

What had happened to Rigel? Dyan had made him sound power hungry. But that didn't sound like her brother at all... Kira lay her head upon her paws, and she let herself worry over all the things she couldn't change.

* * *

Rigel did it on purpose. Dyan was more sure of that fact that anything he had been positive of in the past. Rigel made them follow Wind River toward the sunset. The river curved and bent sharply around a wide, wet deposit of sand. Dyan knew if he walked a dozen paces into the forest beyond the embankment, he would find the abandoned shelter of rock and root that had once served as Rally's whelping den. Rigel even stopped for a brief rest at the same calm patch of water where Rally once let them play as cubs.

It was the same place, where little more than two years ago, Rally had set the great pack frantic searching for her lost cub. Dyan sat in the dirt, just as he had all that time ago, and stared into the darkening sky. Even though the humans had long left the Three Rivers area, Dyan still felt the urge to hunt them, to make them pay for everything they had done to the great pack.

"Dee?"

Dyan stirred himself from the call of the hunt and glanced down to see Dash practically flattened against the dirt beside him. Without hesitating, Dyan leaned down and groomed a spot of dirt out from between Dash's ears. Dash's eyes closed in happiness for a few moments, until the other hunter was finished.

"Dee, he's doing it again." Dash finally broke his own silence, finishing his thought from before. "He's planning again… talking to the water…"

The rusty saber sighed, heavily and weary. Getting gracefully back to his feet, he nodded at Dash, and let the younger cat linger behind. Quietly, he came up beside his pack leader, mimicking Rigel's stance. Together they stood, forefeet sunk into the river mud, shoulder to shoulder. Dyan scowled at his den-brother's reflection, and perked his ears slightly to listen for the words within the soft growlings.

"Kalek is weak," Rigel spoke suddenly, loud and angry. Through their reflections, their gazes met, and lingered as each tried to figure out what the other was thinking. "He is losing the great pack. Kira has fomented rebellion."

"That's nonsense!" Dyan snapped without thinking, tearing his gaze away from the reflection of his hunt-leader, and turning slightly to glare directly at him. Dyan knew he smelled of fear, and he could barely see Dash's form backing slowly away from the confrontation. If Rigel ever learned of their deception, it would mean the end of them.

"Do you think I am blind? Do you think I am stupid as that coddling Tya OneEye?" Rigel snarled, lowering his head for a challenge. Mud sucked at his fur as he lifted a foot and turned slightly on his den-brother. "I actually listen to those around me. I listen to the whispers of the wind in the trees, just as my Mother taught me. If Kalek dies on the hunt, or old and senile in his den, the great pack will split again! I won't let that happen… neither will you."

Dyan blinked, and backed up a step or two. "Are you …?"

"Intending to challenge my father? Yes." Rigel nodded. "Rally would want me in charge, she would want to keep the great pack strong, and virile. None can follow a dead saber. Kira's little rebellion will be easily squelched, keeping the pack together."

Dyan began to laugh, softly at first. "Would you listen to your damned self?" He choked out between chuckles, fighting to swallow the absurdity of this conversation. "Kira couldn't even hunt for herself, much less inspire greater cats to follow her lead!" Dyan took a bold step forward, intending to knock his forehead against Rigel's, but the bigger saber turned from the action.

Dash, belly to the sand, almost bolted in terror as the narrowed, green gaze of the hunting pack leader settled on him. "What say you, Dash? Am I a fool, or does Kalek die when we return to the den rocks?"


	8. Chapter 8

Ellie couldn't help but watch Manny watching Kira. He looked like a worried patriarch, hovering over a wounded baby, and that, Ellie found endearing. This morning found them stepping out of the dappled forest for the first time in days, out into wide, flat stretches of scrub lands. In the far distance, a stand of mountains rose blue-gray against the clear blue sky. The herd meandered easily, more comfortable now that they all believed that Kira was no longer hunted.

The going over the gently rolling landscape was much easier than in the forest; Kira had insisted on walking herself, limping slowly between the bull and the saber. Ahead of them, Ellie kept seeing her possum brothers romping and tussling, kicking up tufts of grass, or plumes of dust. She knew they would never get out of sight, just like she knew that before the sun was directly overhead, they would both be completely tuckered out by the romping. She hummed softly to herself as she walked along, filling the quiet with soft, happy notes.

"Any ideas, Kira?" Manny asked softly, unwilling to disturb Ellie's sweet happiness. "Which way is the fastest off your pack's lands?"

The young saber paused for a moment, resting her hindquarters at an angle to take the pressure off her injured side. "We find the river. Wind River is the shortest of the three. Follow it into the sunrise, and we'll be out of hunting range in a day, at most." She turned her head slightly in that direction, obviously uncomfortable. "We just have to watch out for humans."

"Humans?" Diego and Manny both echoed the word simultaneously. They then exchanged a laden look, one worried, the other, almost happy.

Ignorant of their glances, Kira merely nodded, and hopped into her limping gait once more. "These used to be their hot season hunting grounds. Up until Kalek formed the great pack, and drove them out." She hesitated, ready to spill the rest of the story, but she checked herself in order to concentrate on moving down a slope, further and further away from the protection of the forest.

"You seem to know an awful lot about humans," Diego observed, eyeing the tawny cat sideways.

Kira dipped her head, guilty of some unknown sin for a moment. "Survival," she finally answered. "I had to learn." Picking her head up, she changed the subject quickly. "I smell water, the river should be ahead."

Indeed it was, becoming visible as they topped the next gentle roll of a hill. The river sparkled, blue and serene against the yellows and greens of the scrubland. While the others paused to enjoy the scenery, Kira's amber eyes turned back downstream. She stared at some distant point while all around her the others made plans.

"I say we stop for lunch once we reach the river." Ellie's vote was cheerfully seconded by her brothers. But Manny scowled, glancing at the two sabers.

"I don't think that's such a good idea… splitting up," the bull's fur rippled as he spoke, shivering in a cold moment of fear. "Just look what happened last time." Even though he didn't need to illustrate his point, Manny's trunk brushed lightly along the length of Ellie's.

While the two mammoths shared a tender moment, accompanied by the sound of the possums' faked retching, Kira levered herself down to the ground for a few moments to rest. She smiled as Sid lumbered up the hillside, short of breath from his constant babble. As he flopped down on the ground beside her, Kira had a vision of rolling him down the hill like a log. She giggled, reflexively and covered her muzzle with her forepaws.

"What'sh sho funny?" Sid asked between great gulps of air, rolling his bug-eyes at her.

She shook her head, managing to resist the urge to make her fancy into a reality. "Nothing, really. The bull just reminds me of a few of the more overprotective males in my family…"

Sid pushed himself up onto his elbows, tilting his head curiously at her. "He'sh got a name, y'know? You can ushe it." When she didn't answer, Sid pushed himself over onto his stomach so he could shimmy closer. The young saber seemed to be studying the ground. "We're your herd now, Kira. Namesh are good; meansh you won't eat ush later."

Her gaze jerked upwards for a moment, but then got pulled back to the other side as Diego's shadow fell across her. He began to lean down toward her, as though to nuzzle her back up to her feet, but he aborted that action as soon as he scented Sid nearby.

"C'mon, kid, I'm gonna take you downriver a little ways." Diego looked up over Kira's back to lock gazes with Sid. "You go with Manny. And stick together."

Kira waited a moment, while Sid waddled quickly off, before she began to gather her limbs to stand back up. Her foreleg didn't hurt much after her frequent inactivity, but the hind that Rigel had torn into would take a few more days before she could run again. The male hovered nearby as she tested her weight and limped a few steps.

"Let's go see what we can find," Diego offered as he came up beside her. He glanced back to follow her gaze, finding her watching the mammoths head down the slope with the shadow of a ground sloth behind them. Kira took a long, slow breath before she began to follow.

On their walk, Diego lunged a few times at lagomorphs that quickly disappeared beneath scrub brush. With each failure, he became more and more focused, finally more like a predator than a herbivore. Kira followed behind with her head hung low, concentrating hard on being as quiet as she could be. She failed to notice Diego head off toward what appeared to be a copse of dead trees between the roll of two slopes.

She finally looked up from the ground when he called her name, startled to find him so far away. She turned toward him, trying to limp a little faster, pushing her wounded leg until the pain began to burn instead of ache. From a distance the copse looked to be dying. Straight trunks leaned against one another haphazardly, while flaps of some large leaves rustled in the soft breeze.

Kira froze solid before she ever got close enough to catch a scent. Her amber eyes traveled up one of the slanted trunks, as the cold realization crept through disbelief. Diego had approached, but she completely ignored everything he was asking.

"We shouldn't be here," she whispered finally, cutting him off without thinking. "This is a dead place…" She trailed off as her eyes found exactly what she was expecting to see. High up, one on extremely straight, and branch-lacking tree trunk, dangled a grisly sight.

"Bones?" Diego asked, the curiosity in his voice breaking through Kira's fear. "Human bones. Explains the human smell, but not…"

Kira began to back away. "We need to leave." When she attempted to turn, her wounded leg buckled under the pressure and sent her down hard into a heap of tawny fur. Diego jumped to her side, pressing his nose against her shoulder as she fought to right herself. Finally back on her feet, Kira wavered unsteadily.

"We'll leave on one condition," Diego began, slyly. "Explain to me why your scent is as strong as the human one here."

Kira shook her head, but she knew the male wouldn't cave to her silence. And she didn't think she could make it back to the river without some sort of support. Laying her ears back against her skull, she sniffed the air tentatively.

"This… used to be their warm season hunting grounds." She began softly. "Until the great pack drove them out, until my mother killed all their females and children to carry me home." Speaking seemed to free Kira's body from fear, and she limped forward to the very edge of the warning signal. Diego followed a few steps behind. "They had me for two years… tied up like their wolves…"


	9. Chapter 9

* * *

_She had stopped calling for her mother when the humans packed up their belongings and headed to the north. Two males were in charge of keeping her; at times they were forced to drag the cub along by use of poles and a collar made of braided mammoth hair. The wolves delighted in tormenting the gangly feline, taunting her with bits of meat from catches each night. She was never struck, never scolded though, and if she had known the ways of men, she would have discovered that they believed her to be a blessing, a spirit in flesh._

_She grew that winter, in the shelter of the caves in the mountains. Men painted her story on the walls of their dwellings; women fed her scraps of meat from the hunts. She grew quickly, like any saber in the middle of their first year would, but she would forever be small, compared to others of her species. In the spring, the humans traveled south once more, and as the sabercub grew more and more familiar with her surroundings, she began to mewl and call piteously once more._

_She spent the entire summer never seeing another saber. But the men's hunts became less and less plentiful, while the humans watched the sabercub become less and less responsive. Children could throw stones, and she would simply hide her head and shiver. She dreaded the autumn packing, and trek, but this time, no human was forced to drag her along. From the final rise, she cast a single glance over her shoulder, only to spot a hulking shape silhouetted against the deepening sky. Desperate, she made a call for her mother, only to have the shape disappear at the sound._

_She spent the winter vacillating between renewed hope, and desperate longing for the warmth of her mother's side. When the time finally came to return south, it was she who dragged the humans behind her. The night that the men finally left to hunt was the night that the forest exploded in terror. The female came out of the darkness like a spirit, pale and vengeful. The pale beast tore through human flesh and left it to mark her passage. Few foolish humans attempted to stand against the monster, and they only died faster. When the pale spirit-saber came to stand over the young cub, claws broke the thick rope tying the young one down. A warm, wet tongue washed over the fading spots on the cubs rump. The two, reunited, began to run off into the forest once more._

_The human males returned to their camp in the morning to find the slaughter, to hear the tale of a survivor, and to grow angry at the betrayal of their totem spirit. The monster and her offspring would pay. But not before other humans would be warned away from the evil land. They chose a son, the child of a hunter who had originally brought the sabercub to the camp. They left him as a grisly reminder of the penalties of displeasing the animal spirits._

_The humans tracked the beast to her den, a day's travel upriver. At night they sprung an attack. The cub was wounded; the mother, grievously so. Yet the great cats escaped into the night, mother carrying her cub to the great tumble of rocks and caves that served as the home of the greatest pack around the Three Rivers. When the pale saber fell at the paws of her mate, the deaths of the humans was guaranteed._

* * *

Every forced motion was agony. Every wrenching second that he could feel broken bones grating together, he knew he was inching closer to death, and to the den. Clear knew he had no hope of reaching the den rocks before the remnants of his hunting party. No way of finding out if Rigel was still pursuing Rally's daughter, no way of telling him that the female was still alive. Clear's loyalty to his pack kept him moving, forced him to drag himself, broken and bleeding, along the forest floor. Sticks, twigs, and rocks poked and jabbed sharply. He counted it as a blessing that he couldn't feel his hind quarters any more. Blessed by a mammoth. Clear found that funny, and he began to chuckle, which only hurt him more.

Gasping for air, he lay with his head down, fore and hind legs stretched out comically. After a few moments of resting, Clear twisted his head around to get a look at the rest of himself. And he instantly regretted it. He was too broken to even comprehend his own pain, so he gave his head a shake and struggled to pull himself up to his forepaws again.

Time after time, he kept moving, struggling, pulling himself forward. He would set his gaze on a particular tree, and judge his efforts by the triumph of small goals. When the shadows of the forest gave way to occasional patches of light, Clear knew of the carrion birds circling high overhead, waiting for him to lay his head down, and never get back up.

He only hoped that he would be found by someone, anyone.

* * *

Dyan knew that they were no longer being trusted. Rigel had put himself on point, leading the trio further downstream. Dash carefully kept his head lower than that of their leader, he knew where his place in the hunting pack had fallen to. It was assured that if they kept their pace, they would be reaching Den Rocks by nightfall. Dyan refused to break the silence that had fallen since they left Rally's old den; it was too tense, tight with unspoken accusations.

Before the Den Rocks were even a shadowy bump on the landscape, the trio was intercepted. Elder Bane seemed to appear from the landscape like a ghost, coming over a small rise, and trotting easily toward them at an oblique angle. Dyan stopped Dash from bolting forward, stepping carefully in front of the younger saber.

"Don't panic," Dyan murmured, ducking his head in proper gesture of respect for the Elder. "We need to hear this."

Dash squeezed his eyes closed and lowered his head as well. Bane turned his back on the other two sabers, standing shoulder to shoulder with Rigel. Together, they looked in the direction of Den Rocks.

"Is it done?" Bane asked, after long moments of silence.

Rigel nodded. "She's dead. Dyan lay the killing blow upon her, while I drove the rogue from our hunting lands." The hunt leader didn't flinch as the Elder's head turned sharply toward him; Rigel barely quivered under the intense gaze. "We lost Ouzo and Clear to the mammoths."

Bane shook his head. "Shame. That's two more den-mothers we can count siding with Rally's memory."

"Are there any den-mothers left in those loyal?" Rigel struck out again, taking a few steps before glancing back to check and see that he was being followed. Obediently, Dyan bit his tongue from speaking, and dogged after. Dash crept a few steps, seeking his courage to straighten up.

"We've plenty to survive the culling. My sabers are ready to begin as soon as you lay Kalek to rest at the council's clearing. Tya will be the first." Bane nodded as he moved beside Rigel. The younger hunter dwarfed the Elder, but remained deferent to the older cat. "It all hinges on you, young one. Kalek must fall, before his weakness of heart infects the whole pack."

Dyan fell back slightly, to trade a glance with Dash. Fear was a heady musk from the other, even as Dyan struggled to make sense of it all. "Dash," he whispered suddenly. "You have to find her."

"Wha? Why?" Dash looked frantically toward the two ahead of them, afraid that they would be heard.

"Tya will fight, if she knows that Kira isn't dead." Realizing what he just said, Dyan glanced furtively toward Rigel and Bane. Neither seemed to have noticed, involved as they were in their plotting. "We have to bring Kira back to Den Rocks… or there's going to be war…"

Dash took a breath, and nodded. Glancing back up river, Dyan hoped that Kira was smart. He hoped that she was still with the rogue. Giving Dash a shove with his shoulder, Dyan paused only for a moment, watching as the lean saber bolted back along the riverbank, disappearing behind a tangle of rocks and brush. Before he could rouse suspicion, the rusty saber trotted back into place, behind his hunt leader, and the Elder.

Dyan shivered. The words of Elder Bane were too strong, too true. Kalek hadn't been the same since Rally fell in the council's clearing, since Kira had miraculously returned from the death, thin and ragged, naïve and trusting…

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

* * *

To his credit, Diego didn't laugh at her. He listened to her story without showing any signs of emotion. He barely even cracked a smile when the wind rattled the human remains suspended above them, causing Kira to jump, fur bristling and teeth bared. He simply sat, and listened, which had been more than any of her packmates had attempted to do. He seemed to survey the bones overhead, as though deciding just what question to ask next.

"How long?" he finally asked as she edged further away from the artificial stand of trees. She shrugged, gingerly, and tried to make a nonchalant gesture, swiping her paw through the grass. When Kira didn't answer, Diego pressed on. "What… a month? Or two? Don't look so surprised." Pushing himself upon his hind legs, he balanced against one of the lower poles, pointing with his nose toward the bones. "See? Vultures picked those clean. You can see where their beaks struck the bone."

"Di—" Kira started, but the bigger male pushed off the pole, spinning to face her. They were nearly nose to nose when he spoke again.

"Now look, I don't know what's worse: your pack expecting you to pick up two years of hunting lessons in less than two months… or you _letting_ them expect that. But I do know one thing: any pack that lets a cub get stolen without immediate, brutal retribution isn't a pack at all." He spun on a hind leg, radiating anger in his taut, stiff-legged stride. "Now, come on. We're headed back to the others."

"But…" Kira cowed at his savage snarl, and limped awkwardly in his wake. She debated simply following him, and keeping her silence. "Diego, wait! Please! My father is all I have left! I have to know why!"

"Why, what, Kira?" Diego didn't stop, but he did slow down, anger abating a little in the face of her desperation. "Why did he abandon you to the humans? Why he sent that bruiser out to kill you? If you haven't noticed, I think they're trying to get rid of you."

"He'll have a reason. He'll have to. Maybe.. maybe Bane is claiming a blood-debt.. maybe…"

"Yeah, and maybe glyptodonts will sprout wings and fly!" With a snort, Diego paused, half-turned and fixed Kira with his best expectant stare. She lowered her head and inspected the ground. "C'mon, kid," he urged, softly. "We'll use Sid as your prey, teach you a bit about hunting." She barely raised her eyes in reply, so Diego turned back upstream, and adopted a slow, limp-friendly pace.

Kira watched him walk away for a few moments, mouth opening in a few false starts. She never called his name, though, fighting the urge to pull him back. Instead, she waited until she was sure he wasn't going to look back again. Only then did she give herself a small shake, turn away, and start limping downstream.

For his part, Diego was content to walk in silence. He alternately hoped that he had, and hadn't scared her. As he crested the final gentle hill, he grinned softly to himself. The herd definitely felt more like a family since Ellie had joined. He paused for a moment to watch the mammoth play hide-n-seek with her possum brothers. There definitely wasn't much out in the scrub that would hide a nine-ton possum. His grin turned slowly to a smirk, Diego glanced over his shoulder to throw a remark at Kira.

Except, she wasn't there...

A cold, creeping feeling bristled his fur as he spun around completely. Not in sight at all. He scanned the riverbank hoping she would have opted to travel the easier ground, but the brown mud was pristine. Finally, he resorted to his last choice, and he shouted for her, calling her name into the wind.

Silence answered him as he began to take another deep breath, but Manny, lumbering up beside him, clonked him upside the head with his trunk, nearly causing Diego to bite through his tongue.

"Do you want that entire pack of sabers to come down on us?" the mammoth griped when the carnivore cast a glare up.

"This isn't the time, Manny," Diego immediately started back down the hill. Manny followed. After a moment, Ellie noticed that the others were moving and spent a few precious moments rounding up her brothers. Finally, deftly snatching Crash out of a tree with her trunk, she rolled herself into a run to catch up.

"Diego." Manny tried again to get the saber to stop with just words, but the carnivore's attention was fixed ahead. "Diego, stop and tell us what's going on." As Ellie drew up close, Manny caught her glance.

"Where's Kira?" she asked, instantly noticing the absence of the little tawny feline. "What's going on?"

Manny decided that it was time for him to be proactive. After all, Ellie seemed to like it when he did stupidly brave things. Lengthening his stride for a few steps, Manny eked ahead of the focused saber, and finally managed to bring one massive, trunk-like leg down directly in Diego's path. Pulling up short, Diego looked for another path, only to be confronted by the mammoth's tusks.

"You're going to stop. And explain. Now." Manny demanded, punctuating each statement by poking Diego's broad head with his trunk.

Diego growled for a moment. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught Ellie take a cautious step backward. "She's gone back to her pack," he admitted with a small sigh. "I can't tell if she thinks there's a conspiracy or if she really just wants to know why they've been trying to kill her."

"And?" Manny pushed, refusing to give an inch.

"And." Diego echoed him as Sid's voice carried over the distance, calling for the others to wait up. "I'm going to stop her before she does something stupid." With that, he dodged deftly between the mammoth's legs and struck out once more along the river bank.

Sid panted as he leaned up against Ellie; he worked on catching his breath while Ellie exchanged a glance with her brothers. The shemoth moved so suddenly that she dumped Sid to the ground. Her trunk brushed against Manny's as she moved past him, following in Diego's wake.

"What'sh going on?" Sid piped up as he picked himself up on the ground. "Would be nishe if shomeone warned me, ya know?"

Manny shot the sloth a withering glance, before grabbing him by the scruff of his neck and tossing him up. Sid landed on Manny's broad back with a grunt. "Will shomeone tell me what'sh going on?!"

Manny groaned as he lumbered off behind Ellie. "We're going to rescue li'l miss Kira from certain doom." He affected his voice with as much lightness as he could muster. He felt Sid scramble around until the sloth was situated just behind his shoulders.

"Goody!" Sid clapped his hands together twice before bouncing a little. "I've alwaysh loved a good doshe of cshertain doom!" Manny rolled his eyes. Sid was silent for a few moments before he tapped Manny's shoulder cautiously. "Wait, that'sh… that'sh bad, ishn't it?"

It took some convincing, but through Ellie's sweetness and Diego's threats, Crash and Eddie were convinced to play a game of 'recon' through the great packs' denning grounds. After a series of heartfelt and overly dramatic goodbyes, the possum brothers parted their sister's company and zipped out through the tall grasses. The grasses were tall and rampant from lack of grazing herbivores this close to the sabers' dens, so the natural sway and rustle of the stalks did much to hide the two scampering possums.

Crash broke cover first, standing on the shoulders of his brother to get a quick glimpse of their surroundings. Dropping back to the ground, he pointed. "Dens at three o'clock. No sign of toothy trouble-makers yet."

"Roger that, Gold Leader," Eddie whispered back. "Move out, heading… oh… I dunno, that way."

Fear was a heady undercurrent that sobered both possums right up. The scent of predators surrounded them as soon as they crossed the boundary from the grasslands to the sprawl of rocks. Small packets of brush here and there easily could hide a sabercub as it would a possum. The boys had fear and paranoia on their side, carefully double and triple checking the area before they moved on.

Suddenly, Crash grabbed Eddie's tail and yanked him back into the deep scrub, Two sabers had appeared silently from around a nearby rock, and they walked side by side past the possums hiding place. Eddie tilted his head and listened.

"Kalek didn't call this meeting; Bane did." One saber was speaking, the other listening with head lowered. "Which can only mean that Kalek's gone to Skull Cave again." The speaking saber flicked a green-eyed gaze back over his shoulder, before rolling his eyes and shaking his head.

"But if Kalek ordered her death, why would he mourn?"

"I don't think Kalek meant it…" The first saber sighed softly. "All I know is Rigel returned with half his hunting pack dead or missing, and Dyan at odds. We're probably being called so we can hear the official news, y'know?"

Eddie glanced sideways at Crash, to see his brother wringing his tail between his forepaws. Crash nodded slightly, and the two double-backed along the scrub. As Crash peered around a tree to be sure no one was coming, Eddie scrambled up the length of the trunk. Once his brother was situated, Crash followed in a flash. Their higher vantage point gave them a slightly better view of the interior.

Many sabercats were gathering at a place near the middle of the rock formations; their orange and russet hides dappling in the sunlight through the cover of trees. Some still straggled along the paths winding between the rocks, while others waited patiently at the mouths of small caves. Linking their tails together, the two possums leaned out from the tree branch to survey the paths.

Suddenly, Crash stifled a shout, clamping his own paws over his muzzle in surprise. Grabbing his brothers arm for support, he pointed out what he'd just spotted. Through the trees at the farthest edge of the rocks, moved a familiar shape. It limped horribly, favoring her hindquarter. She paused, and lowered her head to sniff the ground. Eddie was already out of the tree while Crash lingered long enough to watch Kira slip into a large cave near the outskirts of the rocks.

Once the two brothers broke from the scrub and into the long grass again, they bolted to the hollow were their sister hid. Manny and Ellie lay in the shadow of a hill, as obscured as they were going to get in the long grass. When the possums broke from the grass, gibbering and pointing, everyone took attention.

Bit by bit, Ellie managed to pull the relevant information from the frantic duo. And for once, everyone looked to Diego for an idea. The pacing saber scowled.

"Alright, here's what we have to do…"


	11. Chapter 11

_I'm gonna kill that girl when I get my paws on her…_ Diego let the anger carry him away. Anger gave him power, focus. Anger let him ignore the fact that he was scared. Scared that the amber-eyed female was about to be very… very dead. He could only hope that she held out long enough to be rescued. That the last minute preparations to pull her out of harm's way wouldn't cause them to lose their very purpose. Diego practically vibrated with restrained rage.

With a strained glance upward, he could see the possums and Sid moving into position finally. Barely acknowledging their presence, he dropped his gaze back down to the gathering of sabertoothed cats forming in the smooth, bowl-shape clearing. The cats filtered in slowly, splitting into two distinct groups as they entered the space. Many den-mothers, some with barely mobile cubs, and some with cubs just fading out of their spots, joined sides with an ancient saber. The elder was blind in one eye, and part of one of her glorious canines had broken off, probably in a fight in her younger days. The other half of the bowl was filled with hunting-age males and unmated females, all hunkered down in a defensively hostile pose.

Diego had to nearly bite his own tongue to silence the growl in his throat. That big bruiser, the one Kira had called her own brother, sat at the head of the second group, head raised high and proud. Diego glared down at Rigel and channeled all of his anger into the gaze.

Motion caught his attention. Sid was waving to him from across the bowl. Poised on the other lip, the sloth had not only tied a vine around the two possum boys, but the possums now sported the human skull like a costume. Crash flashed his saber pal a wink, and a thumbs-up through one of the eye sockets. Sid did the same, before slowly beginning to lift the two possums up in to the air with the vine. Diego backed slowly away from the gathering, edging slowly back around the clearing.

The possums had given him the best directions they could. Diego would find the cave that they had seen Kira creep into. He would find her, and make her understand…

* * *

"What is the meaning of this, Rigel?" Tya One-Eye snarled across the clearing. "Where is Kalek?"

Rigel only smirked in response. He waited, biding his time with veiled small talk and vague innuendos. The other hunters, both younger and older than he, snickered and gathered closer around him. The den-mothers outnumbered his side by nearly two to one, if he counted the weaned cubs. There would be no problems, as far as he could see, when the time came to put the females in their places.

Rigel was about to muster up a snide remark for Tya's troubles, when one of the young cubs squawked in fear. All eyes turned outward, seeking the source of the youths fears, but it wasn't until one young den-mother cast her gaze upward, that she let out a terror-stricken shriek. Everyone followed suit to see, and even Rigel felt a shiver of fear trace down his back.

Hovering in the air, just high enough to be beyond their reach, was a human skull. The jaw wobbled and chattered, before a soft, almost gentle whisper drifted down over the gathered sabers.

"_This day you will all suffer for the deeds few have done…_"

Rigel bared his teeth at the apparition, growling deep in his throat. The den-mothers began to scatter, herding their cubs back to the protected caves. Quite a few of Rigel's weaker hunters broke ranks and bolted for the paths.

"Superstitious**fools**!" Rigel hollered at their retreating forms.

* * *

Diego paused outside the cave. His ears flicked backward, picking up the echo of Rigel's outraged bellow. That was the signal for the mammoths to start knocking down the precariously perched trees that ringed the rock formations. Hopefully a few trees would start a chain reaction among the rocks themselves, blocking in the majority of the sabers.

Turning his attention back to the cave before him, Diego knew he had to be in the right place. Saber skulls of all shapes and sizes lay in small piles at the front of it. Some skulls had been caved in: young hunters killed by a kick of prey. Others, large skulls with broken canines, had been elders who simply succumbed to the flow of time. Diego could almost hear Soto's voice in his head, warning him of the follies and uselessness of superstitious nonsense.

Even his new pack had a healthy disbelief, thanks in majority to Manny's undying sense of practicality. Diego lowered his head automatically as he entered the shallow cave. His eyes took a moment to adjust to the gloom.

"Kira…" he barely whispered her name, praying that she would react. The walls of the cave where lined with skulls, that stared down with empty eyes as Diego padded further within. It was a tangle of bodies. Kira's small tawny shape was almost completely obscured by the two larger males.

"C'mon, kid," Diego whispered as he circled the three. "Time to go."

She reacted this time, opening her eyes and slightly lifting her head. Her face was spattered with crimson and bone dust. Beneath her shoulders lay a shattered skull, but across her ribcage was draped the forequarters of one of the two males. She met his gaze sadly, and nearly looked away.

One rogue saber had suddenly become two. Diego could only assume that one of the two dead males was her father, while the other… well, he couldn't be sure. All the anger drained out of him as he began to put the situation together in his mind. She had killed the saber who had slain her father.

Kira twisted slightly, still not speaking, as she began to struggle under the weight of the other saber. Diego pushed his shoulder up under the body and gave her some help. When she finally got to her feet, she gave neither of the bodies a second glance, but instead tried to scoop up some of the shattered remains of the skull with her forepaw. When she had a small pile, she lowered her forehead down into it for a few seconds.

"Papa can finally be happy again," Kira said quietly as she straightened, her face whitened with the bone dust. As she turned from him, Kira squared herself and began to limp from the cave with all the dignity she could muster. Diego followed, quickly.

They emerged from the cave to the sounds of fear and pain. Sunlight streamed into the rocks from the numerous felled trees and many of the boulders that had been visible from the Skull Cave had fallen, rolled and some, had crushed hapless sabers. Kira limped with determination in the direction that Diego had come; she was heading back toward the elders clearing.

"Rigel was a pawn in all this," Kira murmured as Diego drew up beside her. "Bane wanted to break the Great Pack up, he needed to kill Papa… and me." Diego blinked slightly. "They would have followed me… it was never about being with the humans for so long…"

Diego caught sight of what was coming for them before Kira did. He twisted to the side, throwing his shoulder into her, knocking her off-balance and into the stone flanking them. Diego caught Rigel's bulk across his middle, and the momentum of the big bruiser sent them both tumbling back down the path. Even as Rigel fought to disengage, Diego kept him close with claws buried in flesh.

Kira shook off the impact even as more sabers streamed from the clearing to surround her. Tya One-Eye groomed the bone dust off her face without a thought, and her low voice purred in Kira's ear. "Niko and Jetha found Clear… he's alive." Kira shook her head, and began to push against the crowd of bodies.

"Get away! Move!" Kira's voice broke under the strain, even as she shouldered away from the den-mothers. Breaking free, she forced herself to run through the pain of her leg, jumping awkwardly to land on Rigel's back.

Diego felt Rigel's weight shift dramatically when she landed on his back. He kicked up viciously with his hind legs, catching and ripping into Rigel's stomach. To his credit even as Rigel's eyes clouded with the pain, the big bruiser made no noise except the snarl of anger.

Bucking hard, Rigel knocked Kira off his back; she landed and skidded, scattering den-mothers and cubs from her path. When she finally stopped, she felt a warm, wet tongue soothe the pain in her hind leg. Twisting about, she saw Dyan's blue gaze smiling at her.

He said nothing, but dove suddenly over her, intercepting Rigel in midair.

* * *

Authors Note: Only a chapter or two left! Thanks for everything everyone!! 


	12. Chapter 12

* * *

Dyan hit Rigel with a headbutt that drove the bigger saber backwards. Rigel slipped, back feet moving inexorably closer to the rogue saber. The big bruiser shook his head, trying desperately to clear it. Before he let Diego into striking range, Rigel twisted and began to circle slowly, pivoting in place as the two other sabers moved around him.

Rigel did his best to keep Diego to his left, and Dyan on his right, waiting and hoping that his den-brother would give a signal and allow them both to turn on the rogue. The circle formed by the den-mothers was widening as the combatants moved around. The only stationary fixtures were Tya One-Eye and Kira.

"Rigel, stop this madness! Stand down, let us talk!" Tya called out, letting Kira lurk quietly in her shadow. Rigel only snickered in response, refusing to take his attention off the two males circling him.

"You should listen to her, Rigel," Diego said quietly. His calm tone brought the bruisers complete attention around to him. "All your hunters have abandoned you."

Rigel snarled, answering with a creative string of obscenities, until Dyan lunged forward and sank his claws into Rigel's hindquarters. The bruiser howled in pain as his hips buckled under the added weight of the blue-eyed hunter. Dyan refused to let go, while his den-brother writhed and twisted beneath him.

"How's it feel?" Dyan snarled. "Being helpless? Not having a leg to stand on? Make you feel good and scared?"

Diego's gaze flickered from the brawling sabers toward Kira. She had her face pressed into Tya's side, body twisted away from the fight. There had to be a way to end this quickly, without any more deaths. As Diego put his attention back on the fight, the bruiser had managed to muster his strength, already on his feet once more.

Levering himself forward, Rigel gave a huge roar and caught Diego off-guard. The bruiser's burdened lunge tumbled Diego over quickly onto his side, claws tearing into his shoulder as the combined weight of the two sabers pushed him across the ground. A few of the older cubs gathered around, gave a shout of support for Rigel's fight and were instantly rewarded with a motherly cuff upside their heads.

Dyan reacted more to Kira's cry of fear than Diego's guttural cursing. Tamping his hind feet down, Dyan dug his claws harder into Rigel's flank, ripping backwards with the motion, dragging Rigel effectively away from the rogue saber. Once Diego was relieved of the bulk of the bruiser, he lashed out on his own, claws catching Rigel's face, tearing him from ear to jaw.

Rigel went down on the ground once more, writhing and twisting until he freed himself from the tangle of limbs. Kicking out feebly with hind legs, Rigel managed to inflict a parting rake against Dyan's chest, leaving the wiry saber gasping for breath on the ground.

Dyan coughed, picking up his head to watch Rigel drag himself away. Rigel struggled to find his feet again, as he inched further away from the blood-drenched ground. Diego rolled to his own feet, forcing himself to stand without favoring that shoulder. Shaking his head to clear it quickly, Diego looked around for Kira.

Tya One-Eye and Kira were on the move, walking slowly around the circle of the den-mothers. Tya watched Rigel, while Kira watched the ground between her two paws. The elder came to a stop before Rigel's pathetic form, shaking her head slightly. Lifting one paw, she reached out and knocked him off-balance once more, forcing him to lie on his side, exposed and helpless.

"This is over," Tya whispered to him, unsmiling.

* * *

Ellie panted, and stared silently at the pile or rocks and rubble that had once been home to more than fifty sabers. Uprooting the trees lining the perimeter had dislodged more than a few boulders. She and Manny had successfully blocked all of the paths out of the pile, a fact confirmed when her brothers, thankfully, had come scrambling over the rocks back to the safety of the hollow. Sid was still trying to light the trees afire, to finish the illusion of angry human ghosts.

That had been the center of Diego's idea. Ghosts. Manny had thought it was a silly idea, never believing for a moment that sabertooths were the superstitious type. Until it actually started to work, Manny had kept the same dour outlook. Now all that was left to do was wait.

"Did you guys see Diego, or Kira?" Ellie finally asked, once the possum boys had caught their own breath.

Crash shook his head, sadly. Eddie supplied the commentary. "No. Stupid tigers all started running, and then fighting, and then running again, and they were fighting more when we finally bailed."

"It was weird." Crash finally spoke up. "It was like, we were trying to rescue the girl, y'know? And they were having this big coup…"

"Maybe they already got out. Kira does move a little slower than most tigers." Manny suggested, reaching up with his trunk to twine it into Ellie's. She continued to fidget, only slightly relaxed by Manny's attempt to soothe her.

Manny's brow furrowed as he thought more about it. Suddenly, he lurched to his feet, drawing Ellie's trunk up with him. "Let's go."

"What?" Green eyes widened in alarm, and for a split second, Ellie was afraid he was going to leave the tigers behind.

"Let's go. We need to give Sid a hand with the fire." Manny tugged gently on her trunk, pulling her up to her feet. The possums leapt up on Ellie's tusks, scampering up to rest just behind her ears.

* * *

Rigel lay, bruised, battered and bleeding, at Tya's feet. Dyan nursed his own wounds, calmly licking the gashes and cuts left by the fight. Diego paced, covering the distance between where Rigel lay and where Kira sat. Nothing had turned out right, in Rigel's opinion.

Smoke was starting to smolder darkly on the perimeter of the rocks. His sister was still living, breathing, and tainting the air with her presence; but, worse yet, his own den-brother had turned on him. Even Clear had survived, to prove him wrong; even Clear had denounced him a liar. Bane was dead; Rigel had no advice to fall back on. What was he to say in his trial to save himself?

Why had Tya even demanded a trial?

"Kira, child, you killed Bane?" Tya asked once more, gently.

Kira refused to raise her eyes, latched onto Rigel's as they were. She could see through the pain and anger, into his disbelief. Kira didn't want to answer; she refused to revel in the glory of her first true kill. "Only because he was already… wounded…" she finally allowed, haltingly.

"Because Kalek had defended himself, before Bane killed him," Tya clarified gently. She turned slightly, angling her one good eye towards Diego's pacing shape. He left bloody paw prints in his wake, refusing to be attended by any den-mother. She watched the rogue pace for a few more steps, before he paused before Kira. Tya attempted to gauge the expression he wore. "Dear child, you are head of the pack now; you must chose if Rigel is to live or die."

Kira shook her head. "No. I won't choose." She tore her gaze away from Rigel's and started to push herself to her feet. "It's not my place to choose."

"What?" Dyan spoke up, pivoting to see. "You are Rally and Kalek's daughter; you slew an elder. What do you mean it's not your place?"

Tya chuffed softly at the outspoken saber, and he fell silent. For a moment, all eyes were on Kira as she studied the blood-spattered face of the rogue saber among them. Diego tried to smile for her, to encourage whatever she wanted to say, but the expression came out lopsided and pale. Kira turned away from him, and walked up to Dyan.

"I haven't felt like a part of this pack since I was brought back from the humans. I don't belong here, Dyan. I am nothing but a stranger, a lame, haunted stranger." Kira's gaze swept over to the tendrils of smoke beginning to snake up with more frequency, before they returned back to Tya. "Elder Tya, I wish to leave the pack in Dyan's capable care."

At her words, Dyan practically fell over. Rigel made noises of complaint and protest from his prone position, until Tya actually stepped on his face to silence him. Kira continued, nonplussed at the rumbling murmur going through the crowd. "He is more Rally's offspring than I am. She denned him when his mother was lost. He learned to hunt from Rally; I never did. Dyan felt the weight of her compassion for more seasons than I can count… Dyan is Rally's son, more than I ever was her daughter."

"And what of you, child?" Tya asked, shifting her weight to keep Rigel still beneath her.

Kira turned, glancing at Dyan only for a moment, before limping back to Diego's side. "I'm leaving."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Diego asked in a whisper as she drew near. Kira nodded, before smiling.

"Let's go gather up our human spirits," she chided softly. "I don't want them completely burning down the dens. Some of them at least, deserve to live in peace."

* * *

Author's Note: Yeegads, it took me forever to figure out how I wanted to handle that scene! I had this written six times over before I finally settled on this version. I think I have an epilogue left and that's it folks. I sowwy! Hopefully, my Ice Age muse will keep me going with all this wintery-weather I'm experiencing up north here... I can't guarantee but there may be one-shots from me in the future!

* * *


	13. Epilogue

* * *

The doe froze. For a moment more, she kept her head in the brush, stripping a final branch of the tender, sweet baby leaves. Her eyes rolled around the landscape, desperately trying to find the source of the noise that set her bones on edge. Great, funnel-shaped ears flicked back and forth, seeking a repeat of the soft sound. For a long moment, there was nothing more. The elk began to chew her mouthful of leaves, still glancing around hesitantly.

Wait! There it was again. The doe's tail flagged up, her nostrils flaring wide. Straddle-legged, she cast about for the source once more. Unchewed leaves fell from her mouth as she blew a soft warning grunt. To the left! Something sleek and golden moved in the undergrowth. The elk planted two stiff forelegs, kicked out with her rear towards her perceived threat, and leap into the forest.

The undergrowth exploded behind her. Paws gained easy purchase on the nearly bare ground; what little leaf litter scattered in the wake of the feline's powerful stride. The elk barely risked a glance behind, to see the sleek tawny shape, and gleaming canines of a sabertooth hot on her hooves. Her bleat of terror was answered by a ringing laugh.

A few bodylengths behind the first saber, emerged another, running much quieter, with much more controlled power. "That's it, Kira! Don't lose sight of her!" Diego glowed with pride that his student, his Kira, had gotten within striking distance of a full-grown elk doe. Granted, this was just a stalking-and-chasing exercise, since they'd both filled up on lagomorphs early in the day, but it was still a landmark occasion for the young tigress.

And boy, could she run! Once she had all those lanky legs of her sorted out, Kira had a ground-eating stride that devoured distances. She was fast for short, controlled bursts; she had yet to learn how to exhaust her prey by conserving her own energy. Diego chased after Kira, catching sight of a tawny flash of rump here, or a flash of her paler, cream-colored hip-scar. When she ran, her limp vanished, magically. He could track her by her maniacal laughter, her pure joy at finally being able to hunt.

Leaping over a fallen log, and skirting a large boulder, Diego skidded himself to a halt. Trotting up the last few feet, he lowered his head to nuzzle Kira's shoulder. She was breathing hard, fast and heavy. She shook her head once, before looking up.

"I lost her," she gasped out between struggles for air. "Elk are just… too fast."

"That's not true," Diego chided gently. "You just need to use your head, more than your feet." Reaching up a paw, he bonked both spots playfully to illustrate. "Outthink the prey, and you'll get your dinner."

Kira rolled her eyes, but didn't answer. After a few more moments, she caught her breath, and Diego nudged her back to her feet. "C'mon, this is a great time for a tracking lesson. Frightened elk leave a trail even a blind badger could follow." He grinned from ear to ear, as she shook herself while rising. Rubbing her shoulder against his, she looked around.

"She went that way." Kira gestured to an overturned rock, and a slew of broken twigs. When Diego simply grinned, Kira took the lead down the trail. His pride sobered slightly as she picked her way through the underbrush, favoring that single hind leg still. Her hip had never healed right, she'd bear that scar for the rest of her life. No matter how often she tried to absolve him of that guilt, he still felt partially responsible.

The elks terrified trail was a swatch of destruction. Kira shimmied beneath a half-fallen tree, while Diego hopped over it, walking up the length. Suddenly, she looked up, curious, frozen in spot. Diego had heard it too: the tell-tale crash and blow of the frightened elk. Running back at them?

Diego jumped down from the tree, landing beside Kira, taut and ready for anything. Suddenly, the doe appeared, blowing and heaving. Pink froth ringed her mouth, eyes rolled wildly. She skidded to a halt, splaying her legs and vibrating. Kira backed away until her rump touched the fallen tree, fear creeping into her features as she recognized the object quivering out of the elk's hide.

The doe shook her head, giving a plaintive bleat. "Run!" she gasped, as her knees buckled beneath her. "Humans!" With a heavy _thud_, the doe collapsed to her side, lungs pierced by a spear-shaft.

Diego cut across Kira's vision, pushing her hard with his muzzle. "You heard the doe, move." He pushed her again, but she simply stepped to one side, gaze fixed on the trees ahead.

"Too late," she whispered. "They're here."

The humans burst through the undergrowth, bringing with them their peculiar musky scent, like stale urine, and rotting meat. Diego spun immediately, raising his hackles, bristling and snarling. There were five of them, all but one armed. The humans stilled their joyous cries when confronted with the pair of sabers across the elk's body. Four of them wore little more than flaps of hide in the warmth of the new spring, but the fifth.

He pushed forward through the others, boldly moving up to stand beside the fallen elk. Laying his spear beside him, this fifth human knelt slowly, one hand on the elk's flank, as though assuring himself that she was indeed fallen. He never once took his gaze from the two sabers. Diego found his snarl echoed suddenly, as Kira's voice rose to join his. Her ears flattened back against her skull in recognition.

The human wore a mantle of animal fur, tied around his neck by the forelegs, the tawny fur flowed down his back. Rising over his head, like a hood, or a second skull, were the limp features of a sabertooth tiger. The top jaw lay intact, framing the human's flat face with terrible canines. Diego realized the implications; just why Kira had frozen solid at the sight of them. These were the humans, the ones who had taken her.

The mantled man, assured now the elk was dead, lay both his hands flat on the ground, and slowly began to lean forward, until his face was inches from the dirt. With a clatter of weaponry, the four milling behind him instantly followed suit. Startled, Diego lost his voice. Kira's snarl faded as well.

Glancing around, Diego nudged her once more. "Let's go, while they're not looking." This time, Kira moved easily under his urging, and together the two sabers melted off into the undergrowth. By the time the humans looked up, they were long gone.

* * *

Blood dripped down his face, obscuring his sight. They had left him with both eyes, instead carving claw-marks down his entire muzzle. A flap of skin hung loose under his eye, stinging with every breeze. But nothing stung more than his pride, his weakling sister had survived. His own den-brother turned on him. His mentor, dead. It was all wrong.

Rigel knew that Dyan's verdict had meant to humiliate him. Four seasons, he'd been given. Four seasons to come up with some manner of repentance, to appease the aggrieved spirit of Kalek. In four seasons, he was expected to come crawling back to the Great Pack on his belly, begging for forgiveness.

Nah.

Rigel had other ideas. He knew Kira had gone toward the northeast, over the mountains. He knew he would follow her, hunt her, and kill her. He knew it as surely as he knew that ground passed beneath his paws; he knew it as he knew that the sun would rise again in the morning. Dyan was a fool. Tya One-Eye was a fool. He'd been so close; he'd felt the siren call of political power. Commanding his troops, he'd nearly managed the single most largest coup ever plotted.

He refused to rest until he saw the sun rise, until he had a direction, a path. He knew that following Kira would take him back through the Great Pack's hunting grounds, so he would have to be extra careful, extra crafty. Follow the river, follow the cliffs, down to the ocean and up the coast. Only when he crossed the mountains, did he not know the lay of the land. None of the Great Pack had ever been over them. But that would be a hurdle he'd cross when he was staring at the great snow-covered caps.

Until then, the night was his friend; the night would guide him…

* * *


End file.
